Missteps and Quiet Nights
by Sunbird Riding Shotgun
Summary: A collection of prompt fics of various pairings, mostly revolving around Eliot.
1. Some Nights

**Rating:** Pg-13  
**Pairing:** Nate/Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter:** black eye/ Hawk_Danceing  
**Notes: **So I've been doing some prompt answering on Comment Fic over on LJ and figured "Hey, I should post these to Fanfic". So um... here they are? They are mostly short and more or less be read without knowing my universes (though there are plenty of treats laid in for those who read my verses). Also they will not all Be Nate/Eliot. Though most will be involving Eliot.

* * *

**Some Nights**

It's been awhile since Nate stopped asking how Eliot managed to pick up his latest set of bruises. On the job, off the job, in a bar, in a shopping mall, at the movies, it seemed like Eliot couldn't even walk out his front door without getting into some kind of brawl. Nate wondered some nights why people didn't learn to just leave Eliot alone since he Knew that the other guys were nearly always in the hospital by the time Eliot was done.

It wasn't a great surprise then when Eliot showed up a half hour late sporting a black eye and wide grin. Nate didn't like how Eliot kept getting hurt but he could hardly object on nights like tonight. Something about a good fight, maybe a few injuries here and there, got Eliot's blood pumping in the best way possible.

Eliot had brought food, they wouldn't of made it through Eliot taking time to cook dinner and sex induced kitchen injuries lost their novelty fast. They ate quickly anyway.

There were nights for foreplay and there were nights when they didn't bother and there were nights like tonight when Nate wasn't really sure what kind of night it was. Eliot let the brawl from earlier tumble over into whatever they did together and it became a match of their own. A tumble of limbs and movement and that give and take control that just barely let them avoid some big conflict since both liked to be the one on top was thrown to the wind and they just had at it.

The next day Eliot wouldn't be the only one sporting bruises, but the others had the good sense not to ask why they both seemed so pleased with themselves.

* * *


	2. Claustrophobic

**Rating**:pg  
**Pairing:** Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter:** Claustrophobia  
**Notes:** Drabble

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**Claustrophobic**

* * *

He hadn't been claustrophobic in years. Shutting yourself in a woodshed over a weekend (even if it was technically not on purpose at the time) tended to fix that. But Eliot had never and probably would never like small spaces.

Still, he wasn't claustrophobic anymore, not physically speaking at least.

But sometimes when he was with the team, surrounded by people, he started feeling the walls close in around him. He knew sooner or later he'd have to shut himself in another woodshed and get over it or leave.

He just wasn't sure which one he actually wanted to do.


	3. Don't Ask Me

**Rating**: pg-13  
**Pairing:** Parker and Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter:** Don't ask me when I learned fear (Adrienne Rich)/tigriswolf  
**Notes: Warning:** Implied Sexual abuse

* * *

**Don't Ask Me**

It had been an odd situation from the get-go. Eliot and Parker weren't normally paired up to go off and do things together. It was a simple math of her job being to never be seen and his job to be seen (if only long enough to punch somebody) not going very well together.

But they had gone in together.

And the job had gone south.

And there had been too many sub-automatic weapons for Eliot to face without being turned into mince meat before he could even get near one so they'd retreated and ended up locked in their mark's panic room which was actually a pretty decent place to hold down the fort until the others figured out how to get them out of there.

Until their mark cut the power and the place became pitch black.

Eliot gave him decent marks for making their stay uncomfortable, but failing marks for building a panic room with an external power supply.

He was just mostly glad they'd both been sitting down when the lights went out.

Parker shuffled closer to him and instinctively he put an arm around her. He knew she didn't like the dark, at least not a perfect dark like this. He also knew she'd made a living off of facing her fears. She'd be okay, but he could help.

Yeah. He'd focus on that one and ignore that this kind of darkness was one of the few fears he'd learned to live with rather than conquer.

Parker squeezed his hand and patted it in what he guessed was supposed to be a reassuring manner. Out of the team she and maybe Nate (because what didn't he know?) knew his fears. She'd snuck into his room one night and turned the lights off thinking he'd left them on on accident and she was "Using her powers for good". She'd gotten distracted by a shiny silver knife and when her presence woke him up in a dark room with an unknown being nearby…

It was one of the only times he could actually remember apologiesing.

She'd asked him then, why he was afraid of the dark. He'd told her it was a lot of reasons, that most prisons and dungeons he'd been in liked to leave you in the dark and after awhile all that pain and fear stuck.

She'd seemed to accept that answer, he was glad. He might be a con but he'd made a promise to himself early to never lie to the team in order to hide from them who he was. After all, they were his family now. They had a right to know him. If asked a serious and direct question he would give an answer.

He closed his eyes as she leaned her head against his shoulder and hoped she'd never ask the question the other's might of thought to ask. "If there's a lot of reasons what's the first?"

"Don't ask me when I learned fear." He whispered to the dark, and Parker nodded.

She started whispering about the huge vault they'd found in the basement whose locking mechanism was trying to elude her fiddilies and all the money that was probably behind it. The words warded off the memory building in the dark, of a night nearly twenty five years gone when his step father had come into his room in the dead of night and the brutality of his abuse had gone places Eliot hadn't even known were possible before.

The tension in his chest eased a little and he couldn't help wondering who was protecting who.

* * *


	4. Atypical Tuesday Night

**Rating:** pg  
**Pairing:** team!fic  
**Prompt/Prompter:**nights when they aren't conning bad guys/Momma_66  
**Notes:** The prompt had the extra condition that it should contain no dialouge.

* * *

**Atypical Tuesday Night**

* * *

It's a Tuesday night and the team is in between jobs. Nate had expected to have the night to himself, just him and his apartment.

It starts when Parker comes in through the window. Nate doesn't comment more than a raised eyebrow, it's not like it's the first time, and she just shrugs. Nate takes another sip of coffee, only half wondering why Parkers there, not enough to ask. She'll tell him so when she needs to and he's trying to hold onto the quite.

It wasn't long after Parker had sat down on a stair about halfway up and was starting to mess with a set of padlocks and picks that Eliot let himself into the apartment. He kicked the door closed behind him, holding up a grocery bag for Nate to see as explanation of why he was there.

Eliot liked to cook but not everything he wanted to cook could be made in single portions. Back in L.A. he'd bring it into the offices, but lately he'd taken to just cooking in Nate's place and leaving it there. He rarely spoke to Nate when he did, but Nate was fine with that. They both had a higher respect for silence than the rest of the team.

Hardison appeared not long later, stepping in and starting only a moment, sniffing the air and smiling in anticipation of whatever Eliot was making. He set down his computer, seemingly distracted from whatever he was coming by to do by the potential of food and drifted toward the kitchen. His hand came very close to touching something as he opened his mouth to make a comment.

A knife being driven point first into the cutting board a fraction of an inch away from his hand and a glare from Eliot was enough to both silence Hardison and send him skittering away. He went back to his computer and toward the TVs in a somewhat subdued silence, obviously not feeling like dealing with a "grumpy" cooking Eliot.

Nate read his paper, Parker played with her locks, Eliot cooked, Hardison did whatever it was Hardison did when he was on his computer, and the silence grew easy. No one spoke, no one needed to.

Eliot had worked his way through one dish and into the next when Sophie let herself in, her eyes downcast and posture tensed as much as she ever allowed. She turned and a look of surprise ran across her face, obviously startled that the entire team was there when it was so quiet.

Her eyes swept over the room again, really taking it in now and she seemed to relax a little. She walked over to sit beside Nate and looked around a little more, breathing and absorbing the peaceful air until Eliot tapped her shoulder. She turned and nodded her thanks when he handed her the book she'd asked to borrow from him a few days ago and then she settled down to read.

Nate finished his coffee and watched the slow movements of the team in the room. It was a Tuesday night, and they didn't have a job for once, and even if none of them would ever admit it maybe just maybe they'd all been lonely.


	5. Reasons for Rules

**Rating:**pg-13  
**Pairing:** Eliot/Parker/Hardison  
**Prompt/Prompter:** Breaking Eliot's #1 Rule/daria234  
**Notes:** There is a sequel "Telling Nate"

* * *

**Reasons for Rules**

* * *

If they'd thought about it for more than a moment, for more than a quick heart beat in the middle of a long wonderful night when their minds were pumped up on adrenalin and endorphins and all sorts of other things.

If they'd thought at all they would have known better.

With anyone else it would have been okay. It was sex, and hell, they'd already been getting pretty kinky. They were thieves and crooks and it was a threesome to begin with and Parker had a thing for handcuffs and both she and Hardison stumbled into the discovery of some kind of latent submissive side of Eliot's by total accident. While Hardison had to admit it was a little weird and not without issues they'd all had fun trying to bring in out in the time since.

And really, that's what they'd been thinking about. Those few times when Eliot had let go a little, let Parker play with her handcuffs with him instead of refusing to let himself be bound, or let Hardison take control in a way that none of them would mention by light of day.

They really had thought Eliot would like it. They'd just forgotten the all important first rule.

Never surprise Eliot in a manner his instinct might perceive as a threat.

As Hardison sat in the emergency waiting room, nursing a broken arm and minor concussion, trying to figure out how the hell to explain this to Nate, watching Eliot try to keep Parker still and not jostle her relocated shoulder with a horrified look on his face…

They should have thought that maybe waking up blindfolded and handcuffed…

Some rules had good reasons. Hardison just hoped the thing they'd had survived getting shown the reasoning behind that one.


	6. Telling Nate

**Rating:** pg-13  
**Pairing:** Implied Alec/Eliot/Parker  
**Prompt/Prompter:** Breaking Eliot's #1 Rule/daria234  
**Notes:** The sequel of sorts to Reason for Rules

* * *

**Telling Nate**

* * *

"A bear?"

"Yeah, it was brown and really big. It was in my apartment."

"A big brown bear was in your apartment."

"Yeah. I was scared so I called Hardison to get Eliot cause the bear ate Eliot's number."

Nate wasn't even bothering anymore.

"So Hardison and Eliot came over and we all fought off the bear."

"And this bear broke Hardison's arm, dislocated your shoulder, and was kind enough not to hurt Eliot."

"It's Eliot. Not even big brown bears can hurt Eliot. It's why I called him."

Nate sighed and did that little twitching at the corners of his eyes thing. Parker was pretty sure this wasn't a good thing.

"Maybe it wasn't a bear." Parker said carefully. "Yeah. I actually think it was a burglar. Dressed in brown. Yeah."

"Parker?"

"Yes?"

"I know you three are having sex."

"oh…"

"So… just… be more careful about Eliot's triggers next time, alright?"

Yeah, there was twitching going on. Parker just wasn't sure if it was restrained laughter or Nate trying to keep his head from exploding.

Nate was really hard to read sometimes.


	7. Certain Scars

**Rating: **pg-13  
**Pairing: **Alec/Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter:** Scars that don't heal/Robinyj  
**Notes: **For anyone wondering when the hell I'm going to get back to posting my regular stories the answer is this week, hopefully. I've been balancing college with a show I'm in and some serious writers block so I've been a bit out of sorts but this comeing week looks like it'll be more writting-friendly.

**

* * *

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**Certain Scars**

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* * *

**

When they first started this thing between them Eliot had expected Hardison to have lots of questions about his scars. Hardison knew that. He knew he should have been curious. Should have wanted to know. It was perfectly in character for him to ask questions like that and hell, Eliot had probably mentally prepared himself for whatever the answers would dredge up.

But Hardison didn't ask. It wasn't that he didn't want to know. He just didn't feel like he needed to. There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of scars peppering Eliot's body.

But the scars Hardison wanted to know about, wanted to understand, weren't physical. Eliot's body had an amazing healing rate and Hardison knew, given time, his physical scars would all fade away.

The other kind they couldn't really see but caught glimpses of at odd moments…

The way he got so gentle with that abused kid and spent so long brooding afterwards.

The fact he still had Amie's number in his phone even if he hadn't even used it to call her during the job.

How an offhand mention of overcoming claustrophobia and a mention of a girl he knew in high school were the only times Hardison could remember him talking about anything that happened before he was twenty-five.

How angry he was at the world, and how it seemed different. Like he wasn't just an angry person but like had justification, that the world had actually screwed him over personally.

It was the scars on his mind and heart, those were the ones Hardison wanted to understand.

Because those were the scars that didn't heal given time.


	8. Worst Case Senario

**Rating: **pg-13  
**Pairing: **Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter: **Eliot's past is not what you think it is./ **ziplockeddaze**

* * *

Wosr Case Senario

* * *

His daddy never hit him.

Oh, he knows that's what Nate and everyone thinks. They've probably all got some kind of image in his head of his daddy (or step dad for Nate, because he's probably got too much of a blind spot to consider a man hitting his own son) wailing on him as a kid.

His daddy never hit him.

His childhood home was actually very orderly and nice, with a white picket fence, and his mama keeping everything clean and him and his sister always well groomed and well fed. His daddy was a soft spoken distant man but he put in long hours to ensure his family was provided for which Eliot supposed was more than a lot of kids got.

Afterall, his daddy never hit him.

His sister is actually an older brother. Eliot isn't sure how but the others apparently latched onto a mention of a nephew as an explanation of what they saw as weird behavior.

By then he'd become protective of them and they figured it must stem from growing up protecting a little sister from an abusive father. But really he has a older brother whose happily married and running a restaurant in Santa Fe and has three kids. None of that protecting a little sister from an abusive father crap. If anything his older brother was the protector of them.

But their daddy never hit them.

Eliot lets it slide, not mentioning it, letting them go on believing what they want to. If his daddy hitting him excuses his criminal work in their minds and makes them feel safer around him who is he to shake things up?

His daddy never hit him.

But then a case comes up, with a little boy from the bad part of town and a preacher and things take a sickening twist when the team finds out just how much a thirteen year old boy sacrificed to try to buy himself and his family a better future. Then they find themselves sitting there with the boy as his world collapses around him and none of them know what to say. Then the team watched in shock as Eliot moves in, talks to the kid, empathises, *gets* what he's been put through, says things that make even Parker realize this isn't one of those put yourself in their shoes.

It's a wipe of the grime so the other person can see you've been wearing a matching pair your whole life.

It isn't until later that he finally tells him no, his daddy never hit him. But his daddy died when he was eleven and his brother got into trouble and they had no easy way out.

His daddy never hit him, but there are wolves out in the world.

His daddy hitting him wasn't actually the worse case scenario by a long shot.


	9. What They've Become

**Rating: **G  
**Pairing:** Hardison, gen team  
**Prompt: **Chronic Hero Syndrome

* * *

**What They've Become**

* * *

It started the afternoon Parker stole candy *back* to give to babies.

Okay, it probably started way before that. But that was when he first really started noticing it.

It seemed… odd… to even think about but the more Hardison watched the more and more he saw it happening.

Parker stole candy from a bully and gave it back to the baby. Sophie stopped a woman from buying a truly hideous pair of shoes on one of their "team outings" and spent the next twenty minutes giving her fashion advice. Eliot beat up a couple of guys who were harassing a waitress at a bar they were meeting a client in. And Nate… god Nate _Helped an old woman cross a street._

The team had developed freaking chronic hero syndrome! Even if they all looked at him like he was crazy when he started ranting about how they were a trope he knew they had.

But he hadn't. He'd knew better. Yes, Hardison was a good guy but it was important to know when and how to say no. He did. He really did.

Anyone who pointed out he'd been helping out the old lady on the fourth floor by picking up her groceries and mail for her would be ignored. That was just being a good person right?


	10. Learning Madness

**Rating:** pg-13  
**Pairing:** Nate/Eliot  
**Prompt:** Only the madman is absolutely sure.

* * *

**Learning Madness**

* * *

When Eliot was still a kid, not quite off the streets of L.A. and just entering the world of crime he'd briefly had a teacher. Later he'd learn Mr. Sinclair, the director of the local youth center's martial arts classes, was doing a healthy business in picking out the most promising urchins, teaching them, and all but selling them to whoever would pay for some well trained hired muscle.

But at the time he'd been the only kind of direction or connection Eliot had had.

Sinclair had told Eliot there were no absolute certainties. You could never be sure you were safe, that you could never absolutely trust anyone, that you could never be absolutely sure when you woke up in the morning that you'd live to go to sleep the next night.

You could play the odds. You could increase your chances.

But only madmen were absolutely sure. And that was only in their realities.

It was one of many lessons that stuck with Eliot long after he'd fought for and won his freedom from the drug dealer Sinclair had sold him out to.

If he thought about it the entire episode had taught him one more time you could never absolutely trust anyone.

It was one lesson that stayed with Eliot through the years, chasing him down long dark roads until he found himself in a hospital room in Chicago, telling Nate he trusted him. He did, mostly. Not absolutely though. Because only madmen were absolutely sure and he was many things but mad wasn't one of them.

More than a year later, when they found themselves in Nate's loft with a year of uncertainties behind them, with Nate sober and six long months separation behind them and suddenly everything changing sharply…

Nate asked him the same question and Eliot answered yes.

And it seemed Parker had rubbed off because for once he was absolutely sure of something.


	11. Safety and Escape

**Rating:** pg-13  
**Pairing**: Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter:** The first time Eliot escaped captivity  
**Notes: **

* * *

**Safety and Escape**

* * *

It was three days after Eliot turned twenty one when he first swore to always work alone. He'd been with a crew of thugs, just another low level bruiser, who'd offered to take him out drinking for his birthday. He'd gotten trashed and woke up tied to a chair. He was the youngest, but the most promising, and their boss didn't like that he was getting a bit big for their pond.

Their boss had told them to take Eliot out. His co-workers had decided to find out what he did with the lion's share of his payouts since they all knew he barely spent any money for anything.

Never in his life had he been so glad he never told them he had a sister.

He didn't remember most of the next three days, other than bits and pieces of cattle prods, beatings, and the stench of half drunk men in a small enclosed space.

But he does remember when the ropes holding him, that he'd been trying for days to escape, gave way. He remembers the moment when his hands came free and he roared some sound more like a beast than a person.

He remembers turning to the first of his captors and then things going dark.

He remembers waking up later, covered in blood, surrounded by corpses and body parts, and not knowing how or what had happened.

He does remember the terror of the thing they'd unleashed, and how it managed to drown out the last three days in the nightmares to come.

It was three days after Eliot turned twenty one that he first swore to always work alone. Eventually the team managed to get that much out of him, when they were having their bazaar sharing and caring moments. He even told them he swore it after the first time he escaped captivity that resulted from betrayal.

He didn't say it was because of his fear of that thing inside of him. He didn't tell them that he spent every day wondering if maybe, for their sake, he should have kept to that oath.


	12. Beaten to the Punch

**Rating: T  
Pairing: Eliot/Hardison  
Prompt: Beaten to the Punch**

* * *

**Assholes and Their Solutions**

* * *

Sometimes people just can't resist being assholes.

Eliot knows this. He's dealt with it most of his life. He's well aware some people seem to have a pathological need to be the kind of person other people want to punch in the face, very hard, several times.

Eliot is also aware that the rest of the team has come to some kind of consensus that they will look the other way if Eliot does just that so long as it doesn't interrupt the job.

It's one of those things that make Eliot admit, just to himself, that he likes being with these people.

He's also very glad that despite Parker's keleptomania, Sophie's inability to tell the truth, Nate's need to be messing with someones head, and Hardison's tendency to be a geek more than was probably necessary none of them have that inability to resist being assholes.

It probably would be bad for team moral if he just kept hitting one of them.

Still, unfortunately, the rest of the world seem to still be filled with assholes.

Which was how and why he ended up here, at a bar, playing a role in a con, waiting for their mark to show up, trying very very hard to resist punching the asshole next to him. It would set a very poor not-stabbing-people-with-forks example for Parker if Eliot decided to slam this guys face into the bar with the right amount of force to destroy his nose for good.

It had started with the guy taking Hardison's bar stool. Then he'd proceeded to hit on the waitress and leer at her after she'd turned his advances, be rude to the bar tender who was frankly a pretty nice guy, and then complain loudly about the drink not being good and probably being watered down. He'd turned to Eliot, continuing to rant about whatever the hell else the world had done but not before he swatted at the waitresses ass.

Yeah. If Eliot was in any situation other than trying to keep a low profile so he could keep an eye on Nate and Sophie meeting their mark on the other side of the bar in case they needed him…

Likely sensing Eliot's lack of interest the guy turned his attention to the bar's TV where the news was reporting on the latest deaths in Iraq.

The next words out of the guy's mouth had the color red blotting at the edge of Eliot's vision, his hands gripping tighter on the edge of the bar as he breathed through the rage and tried to stay focused. He was on a job.

The guy kept talking, oblivious, and just as Eliot was about to completely lose his cool a deafening crack rang through the bar. Eliot looked up and over, seeing Hardison of all people nursing his hand like he'd broken it or something.

And the other guy, on the ground, holding a bleeding and probably very broken nose.

Oh.

Well then.

Hardison shook out his hand. "My brother spent the summer fighting in the middle east." He said to the bartender. It was enough that the guy, who had been looking like he was trying to decide whether or not to object to the violence at his bar, let it go.

"Get out of here." A couple other people called and soon enough the guy was beating a hasty retreat.

Hardison slid back into his place at the bar next to Eliot. "You're brother?" Eliot asked.

Hardison looked over at him and shrugged. "Something like that."

"Then I guess I shouldn't have over to my place later."

"what, you gona show me the real way to throw a punch?"

Eliot smiled and finished off his drink, knowing Hardison knew exactly what he meant when he said. "Something like that."


	13. Once I Start

**Rating:** Pg-13  
**Pairing: ** Blink and you miss it implied Nate/Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter:** Dicipline by Nine Inch Nails  
**Notes:** Specific lines from the song used  
"I need your discipline  
I need your help  
I need your discipline  
You know once I start I cannot help myself"  
Could be set in the BKWK verse

* * *

**Once I Start**

* * *

There wasn't enough time. There weren't enough options. Things were too far out of control.

Nate knew he had to do it. Knew it was the possibility of losing one life or losing three for sure.

But still… He had to take a moment, remind himself again why this was the only choice. The best of worse options.

Hardison, Parker, and Sophie had been caught. They only had a few short hours before they'd be killed.

They were all out of options.

Eliot stood near the door of the room all tight edges and tense lines and the light of life Nate had managed to draw out of him so few times (but slowly more and more) was gone. Eliot wasn't there. The Hitter, the thing that lived inside the hitter, was.

Nate walked over to Eliot, standing in front of the man who had let the beast inside him out of it's cage, who had come to depend on Nate keeping it leashed.

Nate wasn't sure if Eliot would ever forgive him for this.

"Get in. Get them out." Nate said softly. "Sophie, Parker, and Hardison are not to be harmed." Eliot closed his eyes, a flash of recognition crossing his face, a flare of horror mixed with understanding before expression was lost as he surrendered himself completely. "Kill whoever you need to but avoid civilians. Straight in, get them, bring them back here."

Nate drew one final breath. He hadn't given the last order yet. He could call this off, make some other play.

But there were no options and no time and the rest of the team was going to die.

"Go."


	14. A New Plan

**Rating:** Pg-13  
**Pairing:** implied Nate/Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter:** "I aim to misbehave"  
**Notes: **

* * *

**A New Plan**

* * *

Hardison was the one who ended up coming after him. Eliot had figured he would. Afterall, Eliot getting up and leaving in the middle of a debriefing was bound to have shocked them all a bit. He was the one who did as told, never questioned orders, and was a good soldier. Especially since he was Nate's … lover? He didn't even know anymore.

At least he wasn't the only one who didn't know where they stood anymore.

On the anniversary of Sam's death Nate had started drinking again and it had gotten worse in the weeks since. Things were falling apart again.

Eliot had tried to keep things together. He'd worked to keep jobs from going south, followed orders, and told himself Nate would work through this and get over it.

But the past twenty-four hours things had gotten worse, the straw had broken the camels back, and something had to be done.

Trying to make it work by giving Nate the time and space he needed had failed.

Hardison found him as he came to that conclusion.

"Eliot whats up? Is somthin' wrong man?"

Eliot's lips twitched as he nodded. "But I've gotta plan ta fix it."

"You've got a plan." Hardison said, though it was as much question as statement.

"A wake up call. Something to shake things up, knock 'im down a peg or two." Eliot got up and went back inside, using words Hardison would understand. "I aim to misbehave."


	15. Cages

**Rating:** Pg-13  
**Pairing:** Nate/Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter:** Cages  
**Notes: **

**

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**Cages**

* * *

The first time Eliot missed a "meeting" Nate didn't think much of it. The job had been long and hard and Eliot had taken his share of hits and then the rest of the team's shares of hits and was probably down for the count and wanted some alone time to recover. Eliot was there on time for their next date and nothing was said.

The second time Nate didn't notice. He was drunk, too drunk to care about much of anything and in the morning Eliot had let himself into the apartment to make him coffee.

The third time Eliot skipped out on a date was only a few weeks after the second and Nate started to wonder.

The fourth time Nate asked Hardison to trace Eliot's cell phone, justifying that there could be something wrong going on.

Nothing was wrong, except that Eliot was at a bar on the far side of town, chatting up a guy who looked like he could be another hitter. Nate almost thought it was work until they stumbled together out the back door and Nate beat a hasty retreat rather than witness Eliot have alley sex.

It was almost two in the morning when Eliot showed up at Nate's, mad but strangely calm. "You were following me." He said, his voice cold, once he'd cornered Nate in the kitchen.

"I was worried." Nate said. "And I should be. You're sleeping around Spencer." Eliot was quiet, not able to say anything to that. "Why?"

"Not you." Eliot said after a minute. "Just… can't always get what I need here."

"what?"

"Some birds aren't meant to be caged. Some beasts can't be tamed. Sometimes I have to find someone like me, someone who I can get violent with and not worry about them being dead when the sun comes up."

"Some birds aren't meant to be caged?" Nate said, disbelief in his voice. "That's all you've got?"

Eliot sighed and crossed over to Nate. "I won't be caged… but I'll always fly back to ya before morning."


	16. Misunderstandings

**Pairing:** Nate/Werewolf!Eliot  
**Rating: **pg-13  
**Prompt: **the team finds out (what they find out is up to you)  
**Notes: **I had far too much fun with this.

* * *

**Misunderstandings  
**

* * *

Eliot should have known something was up just from what he overheard through the vents on their way in.

"Alright. Remember." Sophie had been telling the other two. "Keep it positive. Keep it supportive. Yes Parker?"

They opened the door right as Parker asked. "But it's really really weird."

Yeah. Whatever was going on… Eliot was pretty sure both he and Nate were going to regret this.

It looked like Sophie had set up an intervention (and seriously did the woman have an issue where she needed to solve everyone else's issues?)

"Hi…" Nate muttered, looking at the three staring down at note cards.

"I'll start." Sophie said before reading. "We know the lifestyle you've taken. While we ourselves do not elect to follow it we have decided we will be supportive and accepting of it."

"Yeah." Hardison said, though he clearly looked disturbed.

"Yeah." Parker said in turn. "Though having sex with furry things is really weird it's cool if you're into it."


	17. Later

**Rating:** Pg-13  
**Pairing:** Dom!Nate/sub!Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter:** Only You  
**Notes: **

* * *

**Later**

* * *

Later, much much later, after long discussions and things getting interesting in the best sort of ways. After a long weekend of exploring the limits and this wonderful new *thing* between them.

Later, there would be a quiet moment in the gray hours of the morning when Nate would wake up and realize Eliot had stayed with him. Despite the fact Eliot had been awake for hours he'd stayed in bed, relaxing and recovering and watching Nate sleep.

Anyone else in the world would have been terrified of the idea of a professional killer, **this** professional killer, watching them sleep.

Nate wasn't anyone else.

He smiled, rolled over, and kissed Eliot. He let himself marvel as Eliot gave way beneath him, letting him deepen the kiss without touching. Not yet. Not without permission.

Nate withdrew just enough to meet those eyes, still as clear as the Kentucky Sky. Now was when he'd make the comment he'd been saving for later.

"Only you would use the name of a Cold war Era Russian knife as a safeword."


	18. A Simple Question

**Rating:** Pg-13  
**Pairing:** Nate + Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter:** The first time Nate and Eliot met.  
**Notes: **

* * *

A Simple Question

* * *

It was a simple question, "do you remember when we first met?". It was a few days after they'd gotten back from the Caymans and Sophie was just getting over Tuskany and Paris and all of that. Eliot had asked with that amused grin on his face, like he knew Sophie was eight feet away and that either Nate had to admit he better remembered his early days with Eliot than with Sophie or lie and Eliot would know Nate was lying.

It was a no win situation, no doubt a little revenge for Miami and Eliot still being upset with him.

It was a simple question, with unsimple answers as far and Eliot knew.

But there was something else. A hazy memory stirred by that question. A hot summer day with his dad and that woman on their way out to camp. He was only fourteen, but it was in those summers he'd blocked out later, the handful of memories that had driven him half crazy years later when his father killed himself.

A blonde woman with golden sunkissed skin and beautiful blue eyes had opened the screen door of a time worn house. A four year old boy with his mothers blue eyes and hair clung to her skirt, a little toddling girl peeking out from behind him.

Names he'd lost and forgotten introduced, his father telling him these were his half siblings and that he should know his little brother and sister. Telling him he was a big brother and a big brother only had one job, the job his father told him again and again in the years that followed right up until those summertime's together stopped and he made him make himself forget them when he got news that his half brother's step father had beaten him to death after years of abuse. Years when his little brother had protected their little sister without him.

And that one moment, when he was trying to dislodge two playful and overactive little kids who had taken to the idea of an older brother much quicker than he'd taken to the product of his father's infidelity, he looked up and saw it. His half sibling's mother, a mischevious smile he found so familiar now, those eyes blue as Kentucky's sky soft when she asked his father. "Do you remember when we first met?"

Nate blinked, finding himself looking into a different pair of eyes as blue as Kentuky's sky, the smile quirked with the same mischief, the same question barely passed his lips and mentally shook off the memory. His half brother had been killed when Nate was twenty five, the boy hadn't even lived to see his sixteenth birthday. It was coincidence, maybe his mind trying to bring back that little boy so full of life Nate hadn't been around to protect.

"Yeah." Nate said. "Cairo, eight years ago. Cell number eight. We escaped together."

_Your mother's house in Kentucky when you were four. I pushed you on the old tire swing out back and taught you how to catch fireflys. _

Eliot smiled brightly but there was a look in his eyes and for a moment Nate almost thought Eliot remembered their other first meeting too.


	19. Hurt, Safe, Braid

**Rating:** Pg-13  
**Pairing:** Hardison + Parker + Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter:** Hurt/safe/braid.  
**Notes: **The prompting had the special condition that the focus should be on three things.

* * *

**Hurt, Safe, Braid**

* * *

The job had gone south, way far south, way the-way-jobs-go-far-too-often south. They'd all managed to get out and were holing up in safehouses for the moment to regroup.

But the job had gone south and that meant things weren't good.

Hardison lay in one of the beds of the cramped bedroom of the safe house he, Parker, and Eliot were laying low in for awhile. He'd taken a nasty blow to the head and Eliot had all but carried him out when they had to run. He'd been drifting in and out of consciousness for a little while, not quite awake or asleep but Eliot kept waking him up asking him questions and letting him go back to sleep so Hardison figured he'd be okay. Eliot didn't seem too worried.

As he drifted in and out he registered three things.

_Hurt_ was first. He hurt, but more concerning was he realized he wasn't alone. The first time he drifted in it had been to a hideous pop and a little whimpering noise and Hardison barely registered that it was Eliot relocating Parker's shoulder before he let himself slip away again.

_Safe_ was the second thing. Hardison wasn't entirely sure when being brought back to a rather painful reality to be questioned by Eliot had become comforting. He didn't know when a guy who looked like half the German Army had used him as a punching bag telling Hardison that he was safe had become reassuring. He wasn't sure when Eliot had become someone who could be that gentle. He was asleep before he really thought too much about it though.

_Braid_ was the last thing. He drifted back awake to a soft murmer of speech. Slowly Hardison opened his eyes, forcing them to focus, and wincing when the smile pulled at his lips.

On the next bed Parker sat, right arm in a sling, head forward, little smile on her face as Eliot finished braiding her hair back away from her face.

With a sigh Hardison closed his eyes and let himself fall fully back asleep. The job had gone south, all three of them were hurt (and Eliot probably the worst knowing the stubborn ass that he was).

But they'd be okay.


	20. Don't Let Go

**Rating:** Pg-13  
**Characters:** Eliot, Parker, Hardison  
**Prompt/Prompter:** Don't Let Go  
**Notes: **Drabble, follow up (or prequel really) to Hurt, Safe, Braid

* * *

**Don't Let Go**

* * *

"Don't let go" Hardison repeated, trying and failing one more time to pull Parker up and back to safety. With only one good arm and no possible foothold Hardison was the only thing keeping her from a 30 floor drop.

Somewhere behind him Eliot was trying to hold back what sounded like an army and Hardison was getting too familiar with the sound Eliot made when a hit landed hard enough for the pain to register.

Hardison heard Eliot knocked to the ground only to painfully stand to fight again.

Hardison tried pulling Parker up again, repeating. "Don't let go."


	21. It Started With A Turkey

**Rating:** Pg-13  
**Characters:** Team  
**Prompt/Prompter: **First Thanksgiving  
**Notes: **

* * *

**It Started With A Turkey**

* * *

It started two days before thanksgiving when Parker announced she bought a Turkey.

It took the team between ten (Nate) and thirty (Hardison) seconds to stop what they were doing and look over toward Parker in disbelief as her word choice sank in.

She _bought_ a Turkey. Not _Stole_, bought.

Before they had recovered Parker dumped a suspiciously Turkey sized and shaped package onto Eliot's lap. "I bought it so you can cook it."

Eliot looked up, rendered non-verbal once more by Parker being, well, Parker.

The silence that followed was broken when Hardison added. "I can make the stuffing."

Eliot looked about ready to finally find something to say, possibly along the lines of 'Hell No.' when Sophie spoke up. "That's a wonderful idea. I can bring cranberry sauce, oh, and Pumpkin Pie. It's been forever sine I baked. Since that job in Prague a few years ago."

'Hell no' was interrupted one more time when Nate mused aloud. "I helped Maggie cook mashed potatoes enough times I could probably do it myself."

"Hell No."

There it was.

"I'm not spending all day cookin' a Turkey so you can spend fifteen minutes stuffing your faces with it, and none of you are comin' anywhere near my or Nate's kitchen an' don't say that you'd just make it at home and bring it over. I know you three don't even have kitchens." Eliot cut off Hardison before he spoke a word. "Microwaves don't count."

"But Eliot it's Thanksgiving." Parker insisted. "And we're a family and this is our first thanksgiving together."

"And" Sophie added with a sly smile. "If we destroy your kitchen we'll buy you a better one."

That was how it started.

It ended with them ordering in Chinese and the others tried to pretend like they actually cared how much they were all about to shell out to repair the damages to Eliot's realm.

What happened between was added to the list of things Eliot would never willing speak about.

Right after the private admission that there were a lot worse ways to spend the holiday.


	22. Burn of an Unknown Origin

**Rating:** Pg-13  
**Characters:** Eliot, Sophie, implied Nate/Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter: **Burn  
**Notes: **Dedicated to a friend who, prior to me getting into fandoms, told me about an RPS fic she read which inspired this story's punchline and eventually became a weird inside joke between us. Oh Xan, you always knew I'd like Fanfiction if I'd just give it a try, didn't you.

* * *

**Burn of an Unknown Origin**

* * *

"Eliot…" Sophie's pause was pointed, demanding, and sounding oddly like it belonged on lifetime TV. "I don't think you got this burn cooking." She looked up from where she was redressing the injury. After she found out he'd been badly burned she demanded he let her take care of it since he supposedly couldn't have done a good job one handed.

"It was a stove." He said again, rubbing his forehead with his good hand and trying not to lose his temper.

"I can tell you're lieing." She said softly, gently, and Eliot had a feeling she was drawing entirely the wrong conclusion from all of this.

With a sigh Eliot dropped his hand and drew his arm away from Sophie. "Fine. Nate gave it to me."

"Oh Eliot…" Sophie said, horror and sadness and outrage on her voice.

"You don't understand Sophie." Eliot added, a small smirk forming on his face. "I enjoyed it."

She was still trying to put together a response when he walked out the door.


	23. Hearing

**Rating:** Pg-13  
**Characters:** Eliot and Hardison Eliot/Hardison if you want it to be  
**Prompt/Prompter: **Hardison gets beat up by the bad guys

* * *

**Hearing**

* * *

They got out only a minute ago, maybe less.

Nate had come up with the plan and somewhere in the back of his mind Eliot knew he should be upset that Nate didn't even give him his usual "Watch for things going wrong" role when he's got no active part to play.

Eliot is vaguely aware that Sophie has both hands on Parker's shoulder's, holding her back and away from Eliot at what she probably considers a safe distance.

Eliot is aware of all these things, but only in the way his mind never stops logging information about his surroundings, no matter how focused he is.

And right now he's focused.

He's focused on his breathing, keeping it steady and controlled and supposedly calming.

He's focused on the tight knot of rage boiling where his insides should be, working against years of control to lash out at something, anything.

But mostly he's focused on the sounds coming over the com.

The sharp exhale of breath when a blow to the stomach knocks the wind out of Hardison.

The soft sounds of flesh hitting flesh and cloth rustling as the goons Hardison is trapped with nock him around.

The sickening sound of Hardison's struggle to breath as someone chokes him and it's all Eliot can do not to say screw the plan and go in for the rescue. It's only the fact that Hardison is getting out sooner by the plan than Eliot going off the rails that keeps him there.

Then Hardison "gives them up", pretends to betray the team, and the job goes on. In only a few minutes Hardison will be back with them and this will be just another bad memory that will fade same as the bruises Hardison's going to have.

Gentle but solid hands touch his shoulder and even without looking to see Eliot knows it's Sophie, trying to lead him away from the sight where the rest of the con is about to go down. She probably knew if he saw them so much as touch Hardison he might lose what was left of his control.

A ways away she prodded him to sit down on a bench. he'd never admit it but as he listened over the coms as Hardison was released he was glad he was sitting. He felt relief, way more than was normally reasonable.

"You didn't know we could hear fighting over the coms did you?" Sophie asked and he shook his head. He was the only one who ever fought. The only one who ever took a beating. That was the way it was supposed to be. He winced as a realization struck. He was the only one who reacted to what they all had been hearing.

He turned to Sophie who was giving him a sad smile. "You get used to it."


	24. War and Peace

**Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Eliot/Parker  
**Prompt/Prompter: **It's better to have loved and lost than to engage Russia in a land war during winter.

* * *

**War and Peace**

* * *

"Why are we in Moscow?" Eliot asked, not for the first time, as he followed Parker down the street. He was just grateful that he had paid heed to his last trip to Russia and brought both his warmest coats. Winter here was just as freakishly cold as he remembered it.

"It's important." Parker insisted. "Life and d-"

"Death. I remember Parker. I was there when you told Nate." Parker had told Nate that she needed to take Eliot to Russia. It was a matter of life or death. No question. She'd been very persistent with that and Sophie had strangely seemed agreed on the matter and convinced Nate to let them go. "But I need ta know whats going on."

He wasn't worried per say. Parker seemed more nervous than afraid and Eliot believed Parker was sane enough to let him know if there was a physical threat to their persons.

Mostly believed.

They ended up stopping in front of some sort of Russian military thing, Eliot hadn't even gotten a chance to read the sign when Parker slid into his vision a bit closer than he should be comfortable with. "Listen very closely." She said. "We need to engage them in a land war."

Eliot blinked. "There is something wrong with you."

"We need to engage them in a landwar, during the winter, so you can see how bad it is."

"Why?" Eliot asked.

"Then you'll know that it's better to love and risk losing." Parker said in full earnest. "It's a quote. 'it's better to have loved and lost than to engage Russia in a landwar during the winter.' After this maybe then you'll come have coffee with me. Or we could… steal something together." She trailed off before perking up again, her smile bright as she said. "Or! Or we could go hit someone. Together."

Somewhere along the rambled conversation Eliot got the idea. He leaned down and, saying hell to cliché, shut Parker up with a kiss.


	25. Weird

**Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Eliot/Parker/Hardison  
**Prompt/Prompter: **Weird

* * *

**Weird**

* * *

There was something wrong with Hardison. He talked about his nana too much for a grown man. He named every single electronic in Nate's apartment and in their apartment and Eliot was pretty sure every throw away laptop he used on a job. He mourned that one laptop of his when it died like it was a favorite pet or something. When he talked about Dr. Who and Firefly or Star Treck he sounded like he was talking in a foreign language that Eliot had no intention of learning.

AND Hardison once compared hot pockets to Eliot's home made pizza.

Hardsion was just weird.

There was something wrong with Parker too. Her obsession with money first off. Followed quickly by her addiction to adrenaline, love of jumping off buildings but refusal to do things like ski on the grounds it was too dangerous, and that plant. Eliot did not know what was up with that plant but he was pretty sure he'd heard Parker giving it the Birds and the Bee's talk last spring and just no. Please.

He was going to completely ignore the bunny thing.

Parker was just weird.

There was something wrong with Eliot. Parker and Hardison were sure of it. They talked about it sometimes when Eliot was off doing his alone time thing. He cooked for them for one, real food, tasty things even their foster parents had never bothered too much with. They annoyed him to no end (they both knew it) but he never got angry with them unless they'd done something stupid (and they knew when they did that too). He protected them, honest to god 'touch them and die' protection even when it meant he got hurt. Even when he already was hurt.

And at the end of a day, after some big job, when he was bruised and battered but had still made the three of them dinner. After they had all settled down to eat and Hardison was talking about Firefly and Parker was talking about getting another plant they both glanced over to find the hitter watching them. His expression turned annoyed the second he caught them looking but neither of them missed what had been there before: A soft, loving, almost blissful smile.

Eliot was weird. But they were pretty sure he thought they were weird too.

But that was one more reason they loved him.


	26. Aftermath

**Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Gen  
**Prompt/Prompter: **Aftermath

* * *

**Aftermath**

* * *

Parker, it turns out, is actually the best at first aid. She didn't start out that way but somewhere along the line she picked up bits and pieces and finally got Eliot to teach her more. She can get over eager sometimes, and her habit of cooing to the wound she's stiching up is more than a little disconcerting, but she's learned to apply the precision she uses for lock picking and the care to avoid setting off alarms to treating wounds without adding to the pain.

Eliot still does first aid when he needs to. When Parker's the one whose hurt or there's more life threatening wounds involved. And he almost always insists on taking care of himself in private and emerging later dressed to hide the injuries even as he masks his own pain. No matter how battered he is, and he's always the worst off no matter how badly things go in any direction, Eliot still manages to drag himself up and around the kitchen enough to make them something to eat. The team's started to use his cooking to judge just how badly he actually is hurt.

The time they notice he's making cold cut sandwiches they force him to sit down and are dismayed, but not very surprised, when he almost passes out in the process of arguing with them.

After a job Hardison almost always has the most wrap up work to do and the longer the job the more work it meant for him after to make sure the loose ends were neatly tied up. But Hardison rarely slept while on a job so normally he'd tie off the few pressing things, sleep and relax for a day or more, and then go back to finish things off once he was no longer running purely on caffeine and adrenalin.

When a job went south though he didn't stop with the pressing details. After every narrow escape Hardison burned through all the details, not stopping until he was sure that the case was wrapped and they could all rest safe.

That was one of the few times when Nate was glad that Hardison had taken up working in his apartment. Eliot would be by regularly to make Hardison stop long enough to eat something. Sophie would come by with more soda or coffee, and Parker would provide distraction at random points to keep Hardison from completely burning out.

And when, inevitably Hardison fell asleep at his keyboard Nate would notice and carefully move the electronics away and nudge Hardison so he'd lie down on the couch. Nate would never mention it but when Hardison stopped muttering "night Nana" when Nate pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over the exhausted hacker and started muttering "Night Nate" he felt *something* he'd never thought he'd feel again after Sam died.

In the aftermath of a job gone badly Sophie tends to clash with herself. To an outsider it might seem like she was pulling away from the group, like the danger reminded her of why she always worked alone and now she's trying to protect herself. And maybe in a way she is. But the team understands she's still not sure how to deal with the fact she now has people to lose.

And she doesn't actually pull away, not really. She may not be seen around much and for a little while developes an almost Parker like ability to not be noticed but then she's giving Eliot a Tylenol and an ice pack when he was sure no one had noticed how much pain his most recent injuries had him in. Or there was a new bottle of Jone's Orange Soda by Hardison when a moment ago there'd been an empty one and Sophie was the only one who'd been in the kitchen recently.

And for a few days Nate never once had to make coffee and not because of a lack of consumption.

As a whole the team had a silent agreement to never mention it. They gave Sophie time to work through whatever went on in her head and enjoyed the gestures that they knew (even if she didn't) meant she'd always care.

For Nate the aftermath of a job gone south was the same as any other day.

Maybe he felt the need to drink a little stronger, and maybe it was a little harder to sleep.

But as always he'd track down Hardison (in Nate's apartment or in the hackers den he'd set up in the building) and check in for the night. He'd make sure the wrap up was coming along (or nudge the hacker toward getting a little sleep).

He'd call up Eliot to get the all clear after Eliot did his own nightly check on the team to make sure they were safe at home, and ask Eliot for a status report. It had taken months but Nate had finally gotten to the point where if Nate asked Eliot in private or over the phone Eliot would actually tell him how badly he was injured and if he could use a few days off to recuperate.

If Eliot said the lights at Sophie's had still been on during Eliot's check Nate would call her to check some meaningless detail and say without saying she could talk to him if she needed.

On his way upstairs Nate would unlock the window overlooking the back alley and then head off to bed. In the morning the window would be locked and Parker would be eating her fortune cookies at the kitchen table when he came down to breakfast.

The aftermath of a job gone south was just like any other day to Nate, but the day after, when the team regathered in his apartment to keep working through the aftermath or move onto the next job… that was the moment when he finally felt a little relief that they had gotten through this time too.

And for once he didn't feel like he needed a drink.


	27. The Places You Fear

**Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter: **Places you fear.

* * *

**The Places You Fear**

* * *

A dark room with tile or stone floors. Where the cold seeps up into you and the darkness takes you back to times you've done your best to forget.

Close to burning bond fires or buildings where the smoke and heat burn you and make your eyes water and remind you of sizzling skin and times you almost didn't get out alive.

Anywhere near a fireworks display. The explosions and sudden lights taking you back to a warzone where you left what was left of you innocence behind as another casualty of those battles.

LA where so much happened and so much was learned and so much was gained and almost lost for good. You can never look at an office building in that city without seeing a life you've built for yourself exploding to leave no trace of it's existence. You can never see a hanger without hearing just the faintest echoing of four sets of feet walking away.

The place. Right here. The doorway to this apartment. The space between the kitchen counters and the table. The couches in front of the TV. These places that feel like home. This group that feels like family. These people you love like you should know better than to love anyone. You know you should leave. You know this isn't safe, this is going to be taken from you, and you know you should try to cut your losses.

But unlike cold stone floors in rooms you make sure the lights are always on, or bond fires you never go to, or fireworks displays you avoid, or LA which you've sworn never to go back to…

You aren't running away from this.

You can't.


	28. Summer Rain Magic

****

****

**Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Team!fic, Implied Hardison/Eliot/Parker  
**Prompt/Prompter: **Sudden summer Shower

* * *

**Summer Rain Magic**

**

* * *

**

It was one of those times.

One of those brief moments, stolen from the world, from time itself even, that lasted for an eternity yet only as long as a short summer shower.

One of the moments of a kind of magic Nate thought lost to the world after Sam died.

They had been walking, years later he would not remember to or from where. The team had been together. Sophie and him were talking about the time he may have technically hijacked a train. Eliot, Parker, and Hardison were debating on the best way to steal something from a museum. He had a feeling they weren't actually planning on carrying the theft out, they were just keeping their skills sharp, but Nate was never sure with those three.

They'd been in a park, he'd remember that much. There had been trees and pigeons and Eliot had one hand on Parker's shoulder like he was worried she was going to try chasing them.

Without warning the sky had opened, rain coming down in a sudden shower.

Sophie had dragged him off to the shelter of a gazebo, Eliot and Hardison only a few steps behind. But by the time he and Sophie reached the shelter Hardison and Eliot were no longer with them. They turned back and saw Parker holding their hands and pulling at them, saying something he couldn't hear.

Then as suddenly as the rain had started the three broke into a run, Eliot and Hardison splitting to run in two separate directions as Parker madly dashed after Hardison.

She caught him within moments and they both went after Eliot who was dodging between trees and jumping over benches, his very distinctive laughter distinguishable from the giggles and mock curses from Parker and Hardison.

Parker eventually caught him, grabbing a hold of his wrist. Momentum swung her around as he skidded to a stop and just as suddenly they weren't playing tag anymore but half dancing in the rain. Hardison reached them and Parker spun from Eliot to Hardison, taking both his hands and spinning the two of them in circles until they all but collapsed from dizziness.

Hardison all but fell into the soft grass and Parker, only slightly less disoriented, stumbled. Eliot caught her lifting her off her feet, whispering something in her ear before they both collapsed into the grass next to Hardison.

Sophie put her hand on his shoulder, soft steady weight, and even though the rain pounded down harder still for a brief moment the sun shone brighter than it had in years**.**


	29. That Day

**Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Hardison/Eliot/Parker  
**Prompt/Prompter: **The day he died for them

* * *

**That Job**

* * *

It was That Job, the one gone bad in the worst ways.

God knows sometimes Hardison feels like every job is That Job.

But That Day. April 13th 2011. That day.

It was The Day of That Job.

The Day when things went bad in ways no one had predicted, no one could imagine.

The Day everyone, even Nate, was freaking out but Eliot just stepped in and did his job and got them all out safely.

The Day the dust cleared and Eliot fell to the ground, not moving, not breathing.

The Day Eliot died.

The Day Parker and Hardison stepped in, moving past a hysteric Sophie and practically comatose Nate to start CPR and call 9-1-1.

The Day they worked together, using what Eliot had taught them to hold onto him just a little longer.

The Day they asked him not to leave them, to hold on for them, to live for them.

The Day his heart started again and the ambulance came and the paramedics saved his life and every medical professional they talked to couldn't hide their surprise that Eliot had survived.

Two days later was The Day Eliot woke up, alive, alert, himself, theirs.

That Day Hardison and Parker told the doctor who'd told them that Eliot would likely never wake up that he doesn't know everything.

April 13th was The Day Eliot died for them.

But he lived for them every day, and That Day was no exception.


	30. Empty Chairs

****

**Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Hardison, Tara  
**Prompt/Prompter: **Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

* * *

**Epmty Chairs**

* * *

In Boston there is a neighborhood bar where the locals go. It's small and off the main track and it's rare for strangers to wander in.

She isn't a stranger, not really, for all it's been over five years, closer to ten really, since she's been in Boston.

She wanders in one night. She's in town and she thought she might surprise the old friends, and when along the line did she start considering them old friends? She hasn't heard from them in years. For all she knows they're not even here in Boston anymore.

She's surprised to see only one hunched figure sitting surrounded by empty chairs at the now empty tables where they always used to sit.

She isn't sure it's him at first. He's changed a lot in five (okay, ten) years. She has too but he seems older than he should be. He was barely more than a kid when she last saw him but now…

She slides into the seat across from him, surprised to see him drinking heavily, already drunk enough he doesn't seem to notice her there.

"Hardison." She says, trying to get his attention, disturbed by what she's seeing.

Hardison empties his glass and doesn't look up.

"Hardison what's wrong? Where is everyone?"

She doesn't expect the bitter and broken sound that escapes him before the word "Gone."

He looks up, eyes red from alcohol but empty as the chairs and tables.


	31. Golden Afternoon

****

****

****

**Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter: **Golden afternoon

* * *

**Golden Afternoon**

* * *

The road stretch in front of him long and dusty.

His bag rested heavy on his shoulders, everything he'd own from now on carefully packed inside.

Ninty-three dollars sat in his jacket's inner pocket, all the money he had.

He held a bus ticket in his hand. It would get him west through two states. He'd have to find some other way to keep going.

The bus rolled in and he boarded, never looking back. There was no one left to look back to. There was nothing left to hold him here.

When he got off the bus he'd be leaving his name behind like everything else tieing him to this place.

Slowly the bus pulled away from the station and he fixed his eyes out the front window, watching fields of wheat fly by alongside the road he was on.

Years later he'd use that day as his birthday.

That golden afternoon in June when he left home.


	32. Desperate Times

**Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Teamfic  
**Prompt/Prompter: The first job after Nate was arrested  
Notes: **These prompts are actually ones I've filled over the course of the past year, as can be seen for example by this fic which was written before season 3 started.

* * *

**Desperate Times**

* * *

No one was really surprised when Eliot took the lead the moment the helicopter set down. The rescue had been arranged by Sophie but they were all used to looking toward Eliot for guidance when situations were dire.

He led them to a safe house in a little town four hours drive east where they spent the night. The next day they all gave Parker a list of things they wanted from their apartments that she could carrying out in one trip each. Sophie and Eliot worked together to make a list for Nate's place. Hardison burned any aliases that might have been compromised and transferred what he could.

By dusk the next day they were in another safe house in New York City.

Two days later they all had new apartments and aliases and Hardison was setting up a new HQ.

Situations were still dire a week later but Hardison had been keeping tabs as usual and the situation had become dire for one of their old potential clients.

The situation was still dire and no one was at all surprised when Eliot took the lead.

There were fewer jokes that first job, the empty fifth seat Hardison had set up in their new head quarters an ominous reminder. There were also fewer hitches, and the job ran almost abnormally smoothly.

Maybe it was a sign of Eliot's ever precise planning, proving Nate wasn't the only one with a plan M.

But it might have also been a sign that they'd lost someone (even if only for the moment) and the danger was finally real to them and they were more careful than they used to be.

Not to say there weren't some problems. The dynamics of the team had been thrown into chaos, Eliot as a leader wasn't something they were used to being for longer than an immediate threat and Sophie's sudden return mixed with Nate's absence... No one was doing as well as they liked to pretend.

Parker was quiet, withdrawn, something about her expression painfully like a child who'd just lost a parent and hadn't quite let herself understand just yet.

Hardison spoke more than usual, like he was trying to make up for the silence, but it sounded forced and didn't hide the dark circles under his eyes or the way his hands shook from too much caffeine and not enough sleep.

The almost serene calm Sophie had had when she first returned seemed to have grown a note of discord. She tried to remain calm and collected, all but mothering the others while they all pretended not to notice she reapplied her make up frequently to hide the times it was smudged by tears.

And Eliot remained Eliot the retrieval specialist. He kept doing his job. After they left the city. After they set up their offices. Throughout the job and after wards. He kept doing his job. His eyes stayed watchful. He rarely smiled except for his role in the con. He was always tense, always on edge. He made sure the others checked in twice a day, more often on a job and they all knew he did a bed check late at night to make sure they were safely at home. It was a dire situation and he would do his job to protect the team.

He was the only one who didn't pretend things were alright, but they all knew that things would be in dire situations until they got Nate back.

They finished the first job without a hitch. Hardison had finished setting things up. The team hadn't worked out the kinks in their dynamics yet but they were sure of themselves now. They'd run a job together without Nate. They had finished their test run.

The first job without Nate was over and when they walked into the HQ after it was over and Eliot nodded to Hardison and Hardison started up the briefing for their next job no one argued. It was time.

Their first job without Nate had been the warm up round to make sure they were as ready and on their game as they'd ever be.

Because situations had been dire for far too long and they all agreed that their first job without Nate would be their last job without Nate.

It was time to get him back.


	33. His

******Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Eliot/Hardison  
**Prompt/Prompter: The first time Hardison wakes Eliot from a nightmate  
**

* * *

**His**

* * *

Somehow when Hardison finally convinced Eliot to spend the night sleeping next to him in bed (you know, like a normal human being) he didn't think about the possibility of *this*.

*This* is him waking up at ungodly oclock because some freak punched him in the stomach and because that freak turns out to be Eliot it really really hurt.

*This* is him sitting up in bed, coughing and freaking pissed off, turning to yell at Eliot only to find the guy about as pale as the sheets under them, his eyes closed, breath short and sharp and even Hardison's sleep (and pain) hazed mind could recognize the fact Eliot was probably having a nightmare.

Well fuck.

Hardison didn't move to try to wake Eliot up right away. He wasn't an idiot. He knew that all the violence was not good for Eliot's instincts and waking him up might have resulted in a very dead Hardison which was not the intended result of tonight.

Then Eliot jerked, gasping in pain and turning to the side, curling up around himself shaking harder and Hardison couldn't fucking take not doing *anything* because he's seen the scars Eliot carries and he may not know all their stories but he knows enough to know Eliot probably doesn't have nightmares about being naked in school.

So he does the only (safe) thing he can think of.

He starts to talk.

Soft and low about whatever comes to his mind. The words don't really matter but he can see Eliot untensing just a little as the tone and voice reaches him.

Minutes tick past and Hardison sees him relaxing further so Hardison takes a risk, reaching out putting a hand on Eliot's back. When Eliot doesn't attack he rubs it soothingly continuing to talk as slowly Eliot's subconscious moves away from dark places.

Eventually Eliot slips deeper into a, as far as Hardison can tell, dreamless sleep and Hardison settles back watching his Eliot (and he thinks after tonight he has a right to call him that even if only in his mind) as sleep slowly reclaims him.


	34. ADay and Other Hazards

******Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Eliot +Team + CK + Lindsey McDonald  
**Prompt/Prompter: "How many of you are there?"**

* * *

**A-Day and Other Hazards**

* * *

Eliot showing up at Nate's apartment at odd hours is not entirely unusual. They all have a tendency to do that.

Only when Eliot lets himself into the apartment today his hair is cut short and he's wearing a suit and Hardison happens to already be sitting next to Eliot.

Then another Eliot walks in (with long hair again) carrying a guitar case slung over one shoulder.

Eliot is on his feet before anyone can ask him what's going on and he's over hugging his (twins?), pounding them on the back, half wrestling with the one carrying the guitar and asking them why they didn't tell him they were going to be in town.

"It's a surprise." Is all the short haired one said. "We would have dragged up Billy but you know how he's been."

All three give an identical eyeroll and exasperated sigh.

Which is when Hardison manages to speak up. "Wait, hold on, back up. Who are you and when did someone clone you Eliot? And how many of you are there?"

Eliot turns back to the others suddenly turning back from a guy with his brothers to their Eliot. "Guys these are my brothers Lindsey and Christian." They give a nearly identical little half wave while looking around. "We're quadruplets, but our brother Billy's down in New Orleans and doesn't travel much." There was a pointed pause and Christian just shrugged.

Christian finishes scoping out the place first, dumping his guitar on a nearby chair. "We're in town for a few days, thoughts we'd see how you were doing." He got somewhat sidetracked as Parker made her way over to poke him, her creepy smile on her face. "There's somethin' wrong with you. 'Must be Parker. Hello darlin'."

Lindsey took up the explanation. "Just wanted to make sure you're not working too hard. You know the A-Day doesn't come for awhile right?"

"A-Day?" Nate asked, taking everything disturbingly in stride.

Christian smiled at Parker, patting her shoulder. A beat later she announced "I want fortune cookies" and went to the cupboards.

"Chris! Lindsey! Not here." Eliot said giving them both his warning look.

A look Lindsey ignored, moving to sit near Nate, though Chris sighed and Parker stopped her b-line for the cabinet looking confused. "Oh, you know, the end of days. Or the start of it at least." Nate looked actually confused for once. "So Eliot never told you." Lindsey shook his head. "You're a good catholic boy from what Eliot's told me. So ya might understand it when I say some say I can be a tad evil, a bit like a plague to those who piss me off, and my brother Eliot sure likes his war. Christian… well he's one hell of a cook but famine's always been the best seasoning."

"You say that again and I'll season and serve up your ass." Chris threatened.

"And our underachieving brother Billy could be rather deadly if he hadn't decided he'd rather pump gas for the rest of his unnatural life."

Plauge, War, Famine, and Death…

Hardison looked up in horror and the three brothers assembled in Nate's living room. "You mean you're the…"

"Four horsemen of the apocalypse?" Eliot provided when Hardison couldn't quite finish the phrase.

Three identical grins looked toward each other before focusing on Hardison again.

Lindsey was the one to add. "Just wait until we tell you who the antichrist is."


	35. At Day's End

******Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Eliot +Team + CK + Lindsey McDonald  
**Prompt/Prompter: Soon this hurt will hurt no more**

* * *

**At Day's End**

* * *

It took a long time, and more than a few fights, before Eliot started letting Hardison know he was hurt.

It took longer, and more fights, before he let Hardison actually see enough to do anything about it.

On nights like these Eliot almost wishes he'd given in sooner though.

He lay on the bed (their bed, a part of his mind that sounds disturbingly like Parker when she feels he's not grasping what she thinks is obvious says), settled onto the soft tempwatsit mattress Hardison insisted on getting and his own soft Egyptian cotton sheets (not quite silk, but nearly as soft and they felt more like home). The lights in the room were dimmed, the windows open just enough to let in the sound of the rain outside but not enough to let in the outside world and covered with curtains to hide them from it.

Today had been long, hard, painful. He'd fought his way out of an ambush, then fought his way into a secure facility to get Sophie and Parker out. Then he'd fought some more with someone else he hadn't even kept track of by then.

He'd do it over again, he always did, if he had to to keep the team safe and get the job done.

But as always the fights cost him. His body was sore from being pushed to the limit so many times in such a short time. His skin was mottled with bruises and a handful of cuts from the knives wielded by the last group he fought.

He'd come out alive, that was the important part, and so had the team.

But now with his body stiffening up and giving him the bill of today's efforts to be paid in pain…

Well he guessed that wasn't really anything new.

What was new was the body settled beside him.

The gentle hands, soft words, soothing motions of long slender fingers tracing over skin, seeking out safe paths through the bruises left by that day, and the days and years before it.

He closed his eyes and just breathed, focusing on those fingers, the soft breath, the sound of the rain, soft cotton sheets, and the fact that he knew in this place with this person in a little while this hurt would hurt no more.


	36. Eliot, Goblin Queen

******Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Eliot +Team  
**Prompt/Prompter: After Eliot says he wishes Hardison would go away Jareth takes Hardison . Now Eliot has to get him back**

* * *

**Concerning Goblin Kings, Alternate Universes, and Other Reasons For Nate's (most Recent) Migrain**

* * *

"Now let me get this straight." Nate said his voice having that strained sort of tone he normally saves for when Hardison or Parker are forced to recount for them their most recent antics. Like why exactly there is a pink chicken running around his apartment.

Eliot really hates when he's the one on the receiving end. It makes him feel like he's fucking fourteen again and his father is disappointed in him. And he hadn't even seen his father in years when he was fourteen.

"So." Nate started, haltingly slow at getting this out, probably partially out of disbelief. Eliot couldn't really blame him on that part. "Fairies and goblins are real and have an alternative dimension they live in. A few years ago you crossed into said dimension and caught the sight of the goblin king."

"Who looks like David Bowie!" Parker insists, not for the first time. They've already gotten past the WTF factor that Parker knows what the Goblin king looks like.

"And the Goblin King proceeded to fall in love with you and wanted to make you his queen."

Sophie hesitantly put in. "Would that involve um… what do you call it here… drag? By any chance?"

_I must not kill my team. I must not kill my team_ Eliot thought to himself. His glare was apparently answer enough.

He was not going to *ever* talk about the sheer creepy factor of that whole episode in his history.

"And when you left he told you all you had to do was wish for something and his Goblins would do it for you?" Nate finally finished.

"I thought he wasn't serious." Eliot insisted. "Or it expired, that was like five years ago. And I've said "I wish…" Somethin' before and nothing happened."

"You made wishes? That's so cute." Parker interrupted. "What did you wish for?"

Nate continued ignoring Parker. "So when Hardison was getting on your nerves you wished he would just go away and the Goblin king's minions took him away?"

"To their castle at the center of a Labyrinth and I have to go get him back before Jareth t-"

"The Goblin King is named Jareth? And you call him by his first name?" Yep, he was definitely never going to live this one down.

"Before Jareth turns him into a Goblin. So can I go steal Hardison back now or are we gonna keep talkin' fairy tales until the stroke of midnight?" He turned to go already stretching to get ready to run through the labyrinth. It was the safest way.

"I'm coming to." Parker insisted. Eliot through a look back at her. "I've been there before. I know the way." Eliot made a note to ask her about that some other time. "Plus. I kinda miss those fire dancy guys. They're kinda cool. You know. When they aren't trying to kill you."

Eliot looked toward the heavens and silently prayed that he'd at least manage to make it to the castle without a side trip to the smelly swamp this time.


	37. Tea

******Rating:** Pg  
**Characters:** Eliot + Nate  
**Prompt/Prompter: After The Order 23 Job Eliot goes back to Nate's apartment.**

* * *

**Tea**

* * *

He doesn't know why he goes back to Nate's place after watching Randy get taken away.

Maybe a part of him wants to be around a "good father" to remind himself they actually exist. Maybe it's just that Nate's place feels more like home than his own.

Maybe he knew, somewhere, that when he walked in the door Nate would be at the kitchen counter reading some old book with a mug of coffee in one had pretending he wasn't waiting up for Eliot to come by.

A pretense that would have been a lot more effective if there wasn't already a mug of tea and an apple sitting on the other side of the table.

Eliot sat, wrapping his hands around the warm mug and letting it's heat dispel the chill that had settled into them from sitting in a unheated car on a cold night like tonight before he took a sip and let the tea work at the cold inside.

The later rarely worked, but as always he'd take what he could.

Nate didn't say anything. He didn't need to. Just that he was waiting up for Eliot was evidence enough he knew something went wrong. Eliot knew there were enough cameras and records that Hardison could have found or figured out what had been going on. And Nate would already know that Eliot knew what he did was stupid but he couldn't have done anything else. And Eliot doubted Nate would have been able to do anything else either.

Well, he might have had more style at expressing his rage than hanging the poor excuse of a father over a railing but to each their own.

But Nate didn't really need to say anything and Eliot didn't need to say anything and sort of Eliot knew Nate was giving him the chance to open up about what was going on with him but…

No.

Eliot shook his head not saying anything but giving a small smile and mock toasting Nate while he finished his tea. He could share, but those old injuries were long healed and the skin had grown back and even if they maybe hadn't healed quite right this wasn't the time to go prodding them and try to fix damage that was two decades old.

He drained the last of the tea, surprised to find it was actually working to ease away the cold that settled into his chest tonight. He put the mug in the sink and picked up the apple on the way out the door. He called back over his shoulder "Thanks for the tea."

As Eliot closed the door he caught a glimpse of the small, unreadable, smile on Nate face before the door shut and Eliot slipped back away into the night.


	38. Creatures Not Meant For Cages

**Rating:Pg**  
**Characters:** Nate+Team  
**Prompt/Prompter: He chased them all before.  
Notes: If anyone is curious about the Eliot bit it's refferencing an older story of mine called Cell Number Eight.**

* * *

**Creatures Not Meant to Be Caged**

* * *

The first time he caught Parker (the only time he caught Parker) it was an accident. He was auditing a claim, checking over the details of a security system for a museum who he had a feeling were lieing about something, when he walked into a room to find a little blonde slip of a thing stealing what looked like the better portion of the antique diamond necklace exhibit.

He wasn't sure which of them was more surprised.

He recovered first, catching her and handcuffing her and recovering the stolen goods. It wasn't until he was calling for security that it registered that she couldn't possibly be older than eighteen and was probably younger.

It also looked like whatever money she was going to be making from this heist would be the first she'd seen in a long time.

The fact she held her ribs when she thought he wasn't looking like they weren't quite healed from a break… well that would explain a lot.

The guards came and took her away and he got back to his real work.

He wasn't as disappointed as he should have been when he found out she escaped within an hour of his capturing her.

The first time he caught Sophie… well it really depends on your definition of the word. Demascus comes to mind, but then again she slipped away nearly as quickly as he captured her. A few years later in Paris he caught her in a different sense and they danced around one another for the time it took them to take out a mutual enemy.

He thinks somewhere along the line he captured her heart but he isn't sure when or where.

The first time Nate caught Eliot was in Italy. He'd chased the hitter across the borders of nine (or ten, he wasn't entirely sure if Eliot's side trip counted since Nate didn't pick his trail back up until he'd crossed another border) countries over the course of a month slowly but surely catching up to him.

Of course when they met in that interrogation room in an Italian Prison it wasn't the first time they met, just the first time they'd seen each other in five years. It had been a long road since they first met, an odd twist of fate landing them in the same cell in Cairo on one of the worst days Nate had had to date. It had been a long time since they saved each other's lives in that hell hole and escaped together.

Eliot told him where to find what Nate was looking for.

Nate was secretly pleased when he heard Eliot escaped not long later. Eliot was a thief and Sterling sometimes said men like him were no better than animals, and it had taken years before Nate started to firmly disagree with that theory.

But man or animal Nate knew Eliot Spencer was not meant to be caged.

He never actually caught Hardison. Hardison was only starting to appear on the IYS raydar when Sam started getting sick. Actually one of his last cases was tracking a ring of hackers. He'd just started to pin down Hardison's profile when he got a distress call from Maggie that Sam was getting sicker than even before.

He dropped the investigation and then life happened and he never finished tracking down the hacker.

It's a random night when they're celebrating a job well done when Parker tells Hardison that Nate was the only one to ever catch her. Hardison follows this by announcing he's clearly the best thief in the lot because Nate never caught him.

It's later (after Eliot threatened Hardison enough to make him shut up) when things have quieted down that Nate notes theres something *off* with Hardison. His smiles are almost forced. He's laughing too loud and talking to quickly and if Nate didn't know better he'd almost think that…

"You know, insane as it sounds, we like that you caught us." Sophie says next to him, taking a seat. "In a world where we're not seen, not noticed, except for what we steal and even then it's about what we've taken and never about us… that you saw us, chased us, caught us… It made you special."

Nate looks back toward Hardison, trying to understand. "But I chased him." Nate pointed out, not mentioning that the one time he did catch Parker he hadn't been chasing her (though he'd chase her plenty later).

"But you never caught him." Sophie said. "And because you didn't he'll never know whether or not you would have cared enough to let him go."

She left before Nate could argue that he'd never let them go. A smile thrown over her shoulder as she left told him she knew he'd never said anything about the fact they'd all been much more than the security that had been holding them could keep caged.

He hadn't let them go, but he hadn't done anything to stop them from escaping.

In a way he'd seen them all as creatures not meant to be caged.


	39. Ghosts

**Rating:Pg**  
**Characters:** Parker/Eliot/Hardison  
**Prompt/Prompter: **the first time someone says something about Hardison's race in front of Eliot and Parker

* * *

**Ghosts**

* * *

For a brief, ridiculous, moment they think he meant thieves.

They're in some absurdly small town way way far in the deep south that probably hasn't seen an outsider in months if not years before they showed up. They're just passing through on their way back from a job in another absurdly small town that was still rather friendly when they stop in a corner store for some supplies and the old man behind the counter gives the three of them a dirty look as they walk in.

For a brief, ridiculous, moment they think when he says "We don't serve your kind here." He was talking about thieves.

Later they'll come back, scout out the town, and take no small amount of glee in personally screwing over anyone and everyone in the town who might share that "opinion". They even use the money to help several struggling multi racial families to move into better lives within the town once the bad seeds had been cleared out.

But that's later. Once Nate calms them down. Once Hardison tells them flat out that the man isn't worth killing. Once Eliot has spent a couple hours with a punching bag and Parker has picked every lock in her box twice.

Because neither Parker nor Eliot think they'll ever be able to forget the silence after they realized the man was talking to just Hardison or the hurt and humiliation that crossed his face in that half a second before he turned and left, the door slamming shut behind him or the hundred thousand ghosts that took up residence in the space where he'd stood a moment ago.


	40. Moonrise and After

**Rating:Pg**  
**Characters:** Nate/Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter: **with muscels and bone moving the hair is the least of the change

* * *

**Moonrise and After**

* * *

It always starts (or at least now that this is "normal" and Eliot lets him be here) the same way. For anything else Nate would tease Eliot about his normal hatred of routines or make a comment about being a creature of habit.

But even after five months he can't begin to bring himself to joke about this.

The full moon is rising tonight. Well, the night before the full moon.

Nate was surprised when he first heard it, and didn't understand the faint despair mixed with vauge excitement when Eliot first told him he changed every night for three days every month instead of one.

At least not until Eliot let him witness a change.

Now as the full moon draws closer he feels the same.

After the change he knows Eliot will be vibrant with life in his wolf form, will run free and wild and all the bits of wolf Nate sees everyday will come out like a vicious god of the night but tamed and gentle toward Nate and their "pack".

In the days after every change that life, that freedom, spills over and fills Eliot with a kind of light Nate wonders if really only he can seem to see.

But that's after the change.

They're sitting out back behind the cabin they've started to go to for Eliot's changes. In the middle of nowhere Eliot can run as far and long as he wants to without fear.

And no one hears the screaming.

They sit on the back porch, watching the distance waiting for the moon to rise above the treeline, for the first touch of moon light to warn of the change that would happen no matter how many walls and doors Eliot hid behind.

With his arm around Eliot's shoulders, fingers running soothingly through his hair, he feels the moment it starts when Eliot's shoulders tense.

His head drops forward even as he sinks back against the support Nate's arm provides him. His breathing speeds up into quick shallow gasps as a shudder wracks his body followed by a horrific series of cracks that keeps going as bone break and dislocate in their hurry to transform.

After a few seconds the cracks are drowned out as Eliot loses the battle with himself and starts to scream.

Nate swallows the bile in his throat and shifts, moving to hold the man with both arms, stroking fingers through hair that's growing longer by the second without taking note of that particular change. With muscels and limbs changing and moving hair is the least of the change.

The screams change in pitch and turn into a howl becoming louder and Nate only wished it was just because of voice boxes changing and not the pain getting worse as his internal organs started shifting and reforming along with the rest of him.

The screaming stopped and Eliot went limp in his arms, his brain finally, mercifully, going offline while it rewired itself and the change finished.

In a few moments Eliot would wake up, a very large wolf like creature as playful as a puppy toward him and as strong as a summer storm.

But for now Nate eased his lover's wolf form to the ground and stroked a hand down his back, waiting for the shakes to stop and telling himself it wouldn't be even worse when dawn came.


	41. Talk to Me

**Rating:Pg**  
**Characters:** Hardison/Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter: **Talk to me

* * *

**Talk to Me**

* * *

They're on the roof of Nate's building and Eliot keeps on getting side tracked by thinking about how even if Hardison is the one who own's it they'll probably still always consider it Nate's building and what does that say about all of them?

About him even, cause the rest of the team hasn't been sleeping with Hardison for the past few months.

He tries to shake off that thought and the others that have been invading his brain since he came up here. He's clear headed when going into a fight but when it came to this sort of stuff everything ended up all jumbled together.

Hardison was standing at the edge of the roof, looking out over the city, and not for the first time Eliot wonders when exactly Hardison grew up. It was before they started sleeping together but still Eliot's sometimes surprised by how much the kid who he met in Chicago was slipping away.

For all the good they did and for all the days that ended happily Hardison was witnessing people getting hurt, parents grieving, kids dieing… first hand for the first time maybe ever. He'd been jaded by the foster system but this was new and for all his bravado Eliot knew every job with real victims Hardison met and researched, every time another bit and piece of Parker's broken past showed itself, every time Nate drank more or Sophie left, every time he came back home with new bruises and scars…

A little bit of that kid shifted toward someone new and maybe it was better but sometimes Eliot almost wished he could slow it down a little.

But times like this, when it was bits and pieces of Hardison's own life causing the injury, when he'd retreated to the roof (and wasn't that normally Eliot's thing?)…

When he was clearly hurting but Eliot didn't know how to help him because he wasn't a kid anymore and maybe hadn't ever really been and Eliot couldn't just beat someone up and make it better…

He didn't know this part. This was Hardison's territory. Hardison did the sensitive chats.

Still, maybe…

He moved to stand next to Hardison, watching the city come to life as night fell.

"Talk to me." Hardison muttered.

"About?" Eliot asked.

"Nothing. Anything. Just… talk."

And so he did.


	42. Dad

**Rating:Pg**  
**Characters:** Hardison/Eliot  
**Prompt/Prompter: **Hardison and Eliot's "Son" is worried about Eliot sleeping on the couch.

* * *

**Dad**

* * *

"Dad?"

Hardison looks up from his laptop, glancing at the clock as he turns to look toward Chris. Eliot's son (well, their son, though it's just Eliot's DNA) is wearing a look that almost perfectly matches the look Eliot gets when he thinks there might be guys with guns around but he's not entirely sure he should be worried yet.

That along with the fact Chris is up at this hour (they're trying to keep him on a sleeping schedule in the same zip code as normal until he's at least ten. Though now that he's nine he seems determined to break pattern early. Must be the thief in his blood.) makes Hardison close the laptop and give his son his full attention. "What is it?"

Chris crosses the kitchen and slides onto the chair at the counter next to him, finger tracing patterns in the marble counter top as he collects his thoughts. "Is everything alright with Baba?"

"Of course." Hardison replies, confused, half wondering if maybe he mixed up the question. If he remembers Baba is Chinese for father which would mean Eliot. Years ago when Chris was first learning to talk Eliot had worked to teach Chris Chinese as well. When Chris took to the language with amazing ease Eliot had set out to teach the boy to speak every language he knew. None of the three knew how it started but around that time Chris had solved the ever present "I have two dads so what do I call them" problem by calling Eliot "father" in any of eight (they were working on learning a ninth together now) languages.

"You two aren't fighting?" Chris asked again lifting impossibly blue eyes up to meet his.

"No." Hardison reassured the boy. "What makes you think that?" Sure he and Eliot still bickered like an old married couple (Considering they'd been married for over a decade that wasn't really surprising) And they sometimes fought but never in front of Chris. They both made sure of that.

Chris mumbled something before saying it again loud enough for Hardison to hear. "He's sleeping on the couch."

If it weren't for the fact the reminder hurt Hardison would have laughed.

Still. "We're not fighting." Hardison reassured Chris again. "And I didn't kick him out of our room."

"Then why is he on the couch?"

Hardison swallowed against the bile rising in his throat at the reminder of the doctor's visit that morning while Chris was in school.

Of the medical issues and phantom pains and everything that had been slowly building for the past few years and how badly Eliot was starting to do.

Of the fact Eliot's nightmares were getting so bad there was a bruise from Eliot on Hardison's arm for the first time in a decade.

Of the gnawing sensation at the back of his mind that he knew Eliot's life was catching up to him and Hardison didn't know what would happen to Eliot when it did.

Hardison swallowed his fears and the bile and gave a little shake of his head. "He's just not feeling well. Thinks he might be coming down with something and doesn't want to get me sick."

Chris nods his understanding, shoulders relaxing and fears easing up. His Walid was very protective of his Dad. If he even thought he might be getting sick he'd do whatever he needed to to keep Dad healthy.

"You know what might make him feel better though?" Hardison asks Chris, ruffling long hair playfully. "If you help your other old man here make Pere breakfast in bed in the morning."

Chris' eyes light up and he nodded, sliding off the stool and clambering over to the fridge half whispering conspiratorially to Hardison about what they'll make tonight and what they'll make in the morning and Hardison smiles wistfully at the back of the boy's head.

Sooner or later they'll have to tell Chris about what his Baba is going through but it won't be tonight or tomorrow or for a while yet.

Sooner or later Chris will be taught the language of life and the bitterness that it can bring.

For now they'll try to keep him as fluent in this language of family and love for as long as possible.


	43. Shield

**Characters: **Eliot, Parker  
**Prompt: **"With this sheild or on it"

* * *

**Shield**

**

* * *

**

It's the last five seconds and he has thirty yards to run.

That's a horrible analogy but it'd be better odds than this.

Parker is standing there with him, in the otherwise empty apartment.

Parker had managed to get out because she was Parker but she only had the time to get one of them.

And the others had chosen him.

Because he was the retrival specialist. If any one person could get them all out with only Parker's help it was him.

Even if every instinct told him he should be there, protecting them, drawing their captors attention.

Taking the punishment so they didn't have to.

But he was out here and about to attempt a suicide mission to get them out.

It was the only way.

He turned to go but Parker stopped him, grabbing his hand, and putting the badge on a chain Hardison always teased him about wanting to wear when they impersonated cops.

He turned back to look at her, surprised by the dead seriousness in her eyes.

"With this shield or on it." She told him.

He knew the phrase from Spartan history. To return victorious with the shield or dead and carried upon it.

He didn't have a heart to tell her it was a different kind of shield.

He nodded, closing his fingers around the talisman and turned to leave.

Somewhere behind him he heard her say.

"As our shield or because of it."


	44. Hopes and Fears

****

**Characters: Eliot, Sophie  
Prompt: He knows the team doesn't understand what he does. He hopes they never do.****

* * *

**

Hopes and Fears

* * *

Sophie once told him that Parker pokes him because she doesn't know how to ask him if he's okay and she figures if she pokes him and he snarls at her he must be more or less alright.

Eliot had reassured her that he understood completely.

He also understood Sophie explaining to him was her version of Parker's poking and for roughly the same reason.

No one on the team truly understood what he did for them, but after two plus years they'd started to comprehend the importance of it and the amount that it cost him. They were becoming more aware of the bruises, the head injury induced migraines, the frequent trips to his own private doctor whenever injuries were outside his range of knowledge.

And Eliot's pretty sure ever since he mentioned it during the Studio Job Hardison's been paying more attention to the hit lists he's been on. (He thinks the hacker actually tried to hack his name off one list. Eliot could strangle Hardison for being so stupid if it weren't for the fact he's actually kind of weirdly touched and doesn't really know what to do with *that* feeling.)

They're trying now, trying to understand his world and what he does better.

And it's only now that they are that he realizes that he hopes they never do.


	45. Knowing

**Characters: Team, Nate 3rd POV  
Prompt: Battered and Bruised  
Notes: Could be considered a prequel to my story Blind Man's Bluff**

* * *

**Knowing**

* * *

They had known it would be bad.

It had been almost twenty-one hours since Eliot had sacrificed himself to buy Parker and Hardison the time to get out after a job went south.

Twenty-one hours was a long time.

They had known it would be bad.

Still, not one of them hesitated when they found themselves at the door to his cell, having conned and stole their way in and having only half formed plans on how to get out if Eliot wasn't able to move well on his own.

They knew that he'd be in bad shape. But he was Eliot Spencer.

They slipped into his cell and that was when they hesitated.

Eliot was laying on the floor, stripped to his waist, his battered and bloodied back turned toward the door bruises peppering his skin.

He shifted a little, the rattling of metal drawing their attention to the heaving iron chains attatched to his wrists, anckles, and neck, before he stilled. His breath hitched like the movement had pained him.

Only this was Eliot. He didn't show pain. Not ever.

"Eliot?" Parker asked quietly.

"It's us." Nate added, crossing the room to the prone hitter and kneeling down. His hands hovered above mottled skin, looking for something he could do or somewhere he could touch without hurting the man further.

Eliot didn't open his eyes, though with both eyes swollen almost shut and his face a mass of bruises stained with blood of unknown origin it was probably something he wasn't about to attempt. He did take a half deep breath and croak out. "Gl-" before interrupting himself with a hacking cough.

"Don't try to talk." Nate heard himself say, resting a hand on a bruised shoulder. "Parker's gonna get these chains off of you then we're going to get you out of here."

Parker took that as her cue. She crossed over to them and knelt down, nimble fingers gently adjusting the cuff around Eliot's right wrist. The movement still drew a half smothered moan when rough iron shifted against skin torn and bruised from fighting the restraints.

"Just take it easy man." Hardison said, finally getting himself to join Nate.

"Check for broken bones, we'll need to stabilize them before we move him." Nate said, trying to rewrite the plan.

Eliot was Eliot and they'd known it would be bad.

But when Eliot finally forced his eyes open and Nate saw where the blood on Eliot's face had come from Nate knew it would be a long time before Eliot would be able to help them get out of this or any other mess.


	46. Common Ground

**Pairing: Pre-Hardison/Parker/Eliot  
Prompt: Five reasons they shouldn't work and one reason why they do.  
Notes: If you've never heard the song 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' this will probably not make much sense.**

* * *

**No Common Ground to Start From**

* * *

_I: Parker is really Crazy._

_II: The moment you move past the fact we're all thieves and at least semi human (note to self: check to see if they're both aliens or time lords or something) we have absolutely nothing in common. We don't even all feel the same way about Breakfast at Tiffany's._

_III: I might be a little Crazy._

_IV: We work together which according to Eliot is just a disaster waiting to happen and something that is never in anyway a good idea. He said it with his guys with guns voice so we should probably pay attention._

_V: Eliot doesn't like admitting he's crazy but he might be crazier than the rest of us._

Hardison blinked, his (daily) pondering of the list of reasons he shouldn't get together with Eliot and Parker interupted when he discovered a sixth item added to the bottom in Eliot's percise handwritting.

**_I: We share insanity and, well, that's one thing they've got._**


	47. When the Fighting Stops

**Characters: Nate and Eliot  
Prompt: "You don't have to fight anymore"**

* * *

**When the Fighting Stops**

* * *

The moment he hears him running, even before Eliot calls something out to Moreau, he knows that Eliot's gone into full on kill mode.

Nate knows later he'll hate himself a little bit more for the part he played in causing that side of his hitter to resurface.

But he grabs Eliot, calling his name, holding onto him, saying things that don't matter right then because he only hopes Eliot will hear what he's not saying.

_"You don't have to fight anymore."_ He wants to say. But it sounds too much like a promise, and it's too vauge, and he knows if he says it he'll have to face the fact he's the one who makes Eliot fight now, even if somewhere he knows Eliot would fight whether or not he was asked to, made to.

He holds on for another moment, silently telling Eliot he's done for the minute. That he doesn't have to fight any more *right now*.

And he hopes, maybe for the first time, that someday he can speak those words out loud and mean it.


	48. Before and After

**Pairing: **Parker/Hardison/Eliot  
**Prompt: **"Technically, you were gone for 2½ minutes. The surgeon said it was -" "You're not allowed to die!" "It wasn't like I meant to"  
**Notes: **Could be considered a continuation of That Day.

* * *

**Before and After**

* * *

Before they were calm.

Eerily so Sophie and Nate would remember later. The dust had cleared from a job gone south and Eliot had fallen, not breathing, heart not even beating, and they'd just calmly went through CPR and calling 911 and Sophie and Nate had to wonder if they'd practiced for this day.

And they were calm when the ambulance got there, not even arguing over Hardison riding with Eliot to the hospital and Parker taking the wheel to drive the rest of them.

And Hardison was calm when they met him there and Parker was calm when she tracked Eliot through the hospital in the wards she wasn't supposed to be in.

And they were both calm when the doctors told them first that he probably wouldn't make it, that they'd only just barely brought him back, that they'd lost him again and wouldn't get him back the next time, that he would probably never wake up, waiting calmly and silently for the news they at least knew would come.

Denial, said the doctors. They were both young and didn't understand mortality (Sophie and Nate think of a bicycle accidents, years spent in foster care, and the little boy who caused *this* and know otherwise).

Parker and Hardison, they think.

And afterwards they'll bounce back quickly, like nothing happened, like they've always lived knowing the day may come when Eliot wouldn't get back up after he was knocked down, like they know these days they have together may be (probably are) numbered and they can't be wasted on fear.

But it isn't calm in that moment when the heart monitor spikes just a little, not dangerously, just as much as they'd expect when Eliot regains consciousness in an unknown place.

They aren't calm as they crowd to either side of the bed, hopes and fears and terror they've denied existence for days surging into life and the air between them as they wait for those eyes to open, to recognize them, for a voice to growl something that would tell them he's still him (still theirs).

He coughs, eyes opening just a sliver. Hardison looks like the new edition of W.O.W. came out early. Parker looks ready to cry, or scream, or stab someone.

"I feel like I died." Eliot mumbles (he's not sure he actually managed to say anything close to that).

Sophie goes to get a doctor and Nate (roaming the halls, not able to just watch and wait), Parker gets him a drink.

Hardison tells him. "Technically, you were gone for 2½ minutes. The surgeon said it was -"

"YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO DIE" Parker interrupts at a yell.

"…It's not like I meant to" Eliot responds.

When Sophie comes back with Nate the three are bickering and bantering and speaking so fast the words blur together into a desperate song of "almost" and "Don't ever" and "so glad", giving life to what they couldn't before and letting it die instead of Eliot.


	49. We Each of Us Angels

**Characters: Nate + Eliot + Parker  
Prompt: - hurt Nate is in one corner of the office, and Elliot and Parker are the only people between him and the goons. They're not gonna get near him.**

* * *

**We Each of Us Angels**

* * *

Maybe it was the head trauma, the blood loss, or the pain from Eliot's (now aborted) attempt to sew up the long gash on his arm (without giving him anything more than a couple gulps from the flask Eliot carried in his med kit, the closest to a pain killer the hitter used on a job). Maybe it was just his mind trying to put what he was seeing into terms he'd understand.

Maybe the world had gone crazy, but he knew that that had happened awhile ago.

The job had gone south, way far south, and while Sophie and Hardison had had a clear path to the exit he, Eliot, and Parker had been deep inside the corporation's sprawling home base compound. Their progress toward the exit had been slowed by goons, the injuries he (and probably Eliot, judging by the way his left hand was holding his ribs) had sustained getting out of their initial location, and that they'd lost connection with Hardison and his blueprints and directions for the maze that this place was.

They'd gotten cornered and made a retreat into an office building, Parker managing to "find" a phone she could call into Hardison their location for an extraction. Eliot had found them a temporary haven inside an office and had tried to administer as much medical care as he could under the circumstances.

Then the door had burst open, guys with guns and the look in their eyes like they had no problems using them filing into the room.

The bright light from the hallway seemed to glare out in contrast against the dark figures rushing in and the two forms standing in defiance between their downed leader and the new threat.

They looked like wolves, or maybe angels, fallen ones, but still guardians…

The last thought that went through his mind before darkness pulled him under was that he knew they wouldn't let the goons get anywhere near him.


	50. Snapshots

**Notes:** These are three mini fics done for five sentence or three sentence prompts.

* * *

**Snapshots**

* * *

They should have seen this coming.

They knew her by now.

But she's standing there, eyes wide and innocent, expression confused, hand and clothes and face spattered with blood that wasn't hers and she asks *them* what's wrong.

She asks them what she did wrong.

After all, the blood belonged to the person who'd shot Eliot didn't it?

**oOo**

Parker is the one constantly doing the insane and Hardison always has information in a way ten years ago she would never have believed and every time she thinks she knows Nate completely he does something to take her off guard.

But really, out of all of them, Eliot is still the one she finds most surprising.

It's the little things, probably the ones the others take for granted or don't notice because they can't read people like her and don't understand just who and what he once was.

It's the way he's started to nap in that arm chair in the corner of Nate's apartment when he's been injured, how he's started to actually drink the drinks the others give him, the night he invited her over to his place for dinner and a chance to mutually vent about Nate.

He's started to trust them and no matter how often she notices it it still surprises her every time.

**oOo**

The thought takes a few months, okay until they've split up and come back together in Boston, to fully form. Even then it takes that damn case in the hospital with the abused kid and the weeks of brooding afterwards and Eliot finally breaking out of the mood and laughing again.

But when the thought hits, when Hardison first registers 'He should smile more', he knows he's way too far gone for this to just be a passing thing.


	51. The One Before

**Characters: Hardison/Eliot  
Prompt: can't find the original prompt anymore**

* * *

**The One Before**

* * *

He doesn't tell Eliot, but he's pretty sure he already knows anyway.

"It's a very distinctive look" Eliot would probably say. Or maybe it would be his hands.

Who was he kidding? He didn't catch half the things Eliot saw. He probably couldn't guess what tipped Eliot off.

He's used to this though.

Used to not letting himself watch the clock because he knows Eliot will get home when he gets home and knowing exactly how late Eliot was this time will only make him wonder if tonight is the night Eliot doesn't come home.

Used to keeping the medical closet (because with guys like Eliot you need an entire closet) well stocked.

Used to the guy you love walking in the front door barely under his own power.

Used to washing the blood of the guy he loved off his hands and bathroom floor after treating the most recent rounds of injuries and putting said guy to bed.

Sometimes when he's doing the waiting or the washing he'll think of the one who came before. Of the guy he took off with, left Nana's with, first entered the criminal underworld with. He remembers the world being full of opportunities and thinking they were invincible and that no power in the verse could stop them.

He remembers how the world started to close in during those hours waiting for Him to come home and how somehow with blood he'd washed away the glimmer on their world.

He remembers the day He didn't come home.

The door opens and Eliot's there, leaning against the frame, white bandages and purple bruises contrasting sharply against golden skin. "Your thinking about him again." He states softly, moving across the space between them with grace no one as badly hurt as him has any right to have.

"How do you know?" Hardison asks, looking back to the sink and splashing water on his face.

A hand settles on his shoulder, offering no promises Eliot couldn't be sure to keep, but offering this moment all the same.

And that's also something Hardison remembers.

"It's a very distinctive look."


	52. What They Say

**Characters: **Eliot, Hardison, Nate, Parker  
**Rating: G  
Prompt:** The TV Trope "Aw, look, they really do love each othere"

* * *

**What they Say**

* * *

It had been one of those jobs.

Not one of the jobs where everything went south and people kept nearly getting caught and or killed. Personally Nate would rather have that kind of job since the team operated best under that kind of stress and they were actually less likely to get a serious injury than they were from *this* kind of job.

This kind of job was one where two members of the team were forced to spend long periods of time together.

This kind of job generally resulted in Eliot and Hardison inches away from murdering each other.

Thankfully this job was almost ready to be in the past tense. The tail end of the con was playing out, Eliot and Hardison were finally getting to play through to the end of their role.

And then it started becoming the other kind of job.

Nate was back at home base, listening over the coms as Hardison and Eliot continued to bicker and half yell at each other as shit hit the fan, their arguments reduced to short hand "Damit Hardison"s and "Damit Eliot"s, the panic in their voices causing Nate to shout over the coms for *someone* to tell him what was going on.

Then there was gun shots and sounds of a fight, a half roaring sound that Nate wasn't even sure was human but defiantly seemed angry.

Seconds passed, he could hear soft thumps and what sounded like breaking bone and he didn't make a sound because he had to find some evidence someone was still alive.

Then, Eliot's voice, soft, afraid, yet hopeful. "Hardison?" A beat, rustling cloth. "Hardison, man, come on, open your eyes… you're okay." The last sounded more like a question, or a prayer. There was a small moan and a relived breath. "That's it. Move slow. I'm gonna get you outta here." Shuffling, probably Eliot pulling Hardison up.

"Hurts like a bitch." Hardison muttered, half under his breath.

"Well you shouldn't have gotten between me and the bad guys then." Eliot responded, his tone far more gentle than it ever got when one of them wasn't hurt.

"He was coming at you with a knife and you were busy with the other dude. It was instinct. Sue me for trying to save your cowboy ass."

Nate wasn't really sure what emotion was in his tone when Eliot finally addressed them over the coms. "We're okay here, just ran into some goons and Hardison tried to play the hero. We're on our way back." A beat later he added. "and next time Hardison? Let me worry about my own cowboy ass."

"Aww…" Parker said over the coms, her tone not quite right for the sentiment but it was Parker after all. "See, they really do love each other."

Two matching muttered warnings were the only response.


	53. Visiting Hours

**Rating:** Pg  
**Pairing:** Team  
**Prompt/Prompter:** Visiting Hours  
**Notes: **The prompt was meant to be from an outsider's point of view.

* * *

**Visiting Hours**

* * *

"Maria?" Jenny, the newest nurse and Maria's, unfortunate, responsibility for the next few weeks until she's settled, came back to the nurses station with a bewildered expression.

Maria would have felt irritated that the girl didn't even make it twenty minutes into her shift without coming back with a question if it weren't for the fact that bewildered expressions had been the order of the day for their floor ever since the triple GSW was moved to their floor for recovery from the ICU early that morning.

The guy was cute, if you were into the bad boy types and had been around long enough to see past the temporary effects that kind of trauma had on a body. He hadn't been awake much but seemed to be one of the rare types who hated hospitals but respected them enough, and knew enough, to follow directions and not make so much fuss they had to restrain him.

Though the sheer volume of scars on the guy suggested this wasn't his first stay in the hospital.

Really it was his visitors that kept causing the confusion. His brother who seemed way too broody and twitchy. The sister in law who seemed far too polished (and seemed to shower more affection on her patient than the brother). The best friend who seemed a little young and geeky for a thrity seven year old guy with more scars than Maria normally saw in two weeks and the best friend's girl who alternated between looking like a little girl who was scared to see her big brother badly hurt and a pure and simple nutcase.

And they'd been drifting in and out all day like they had nothing better to do than watch Mark Baker sleep.

"What is it Jenny?" Maria asked, looking back down to her form, readying herself to tell the girl that strange visitors were just part of the territory.

"The visitors for Mark Baker won't leave." She shuffled nervously. "And I think the blonde one wants to kill me."

Maria glanced to the clock and sighed, visiting hours ended five minutes ago. Why was she not surprised?

She beckoned Jenny with a finger, walking the girl across the floor to the door of the room. "Go in there, finish your nightly rounds, and while your in there try to process what you feel. Don't try to kick them out and call security if they let the blonde one do anything rash."

Jenny looked toward the room, hint of an idea on her face.

At the end of the night, before Maria left, she found Jenny and asked the question she always asked any new kid she was watching out for. "What did you learn tonight?"

Jenny looked down the hall, toward the room, a tired sort of smile crossing the girl's face.

"Visiting hours don't apply to some people."


	54. Damage Not Undone

**Rating:** Pg-13  
**Pairing:** Eliot + Team  
**Prompt/Prompter:** Mental institution  
**Notes: **Really dark, somewhat depressing, and with mental health warnings.

* * *

**Damage Not Undone**

* * *

They visit him whenever they're not on the job and when they're doing a job in town and the orderlies say he's having a good day.

Sometimes those days are like the old times. They bring their cases, he's staying in the best institution they could find and have become huge benefactors which means they can visit him whenever they want and have a private room when they come. They sit around, Hardison gives the briefing, Parker perches as close to him as she can without touching him, Sophie talks about marks and things they've done, the retellings dramatic. Nate stands at the edges of the group, trying to behave like business as usual but not quite able to get there.

And on good days He responds, he meets their eyes and nods and smiles and talks about how it's a very distinctive x or how there's still something wrong with Parker.

On good days her tactless rebuttal that there's something wrong with him too causes him to smile.

And they've gotten good at not noticing the constant tremor in his hands (permanent nerve damage) and the way he limps (shattered knee caps, right leg broken in four places, left in seven, 'just too much damage to heal all the way'.) and they have all gotten very good at never touching him.

(They remember when they first rescued him. They remember the blood and cuts and the evidence of damage of a kind they couldn't begin to understand much less undo. They remember when he woke up and Sophie's hand on his shoulder made him cringe and his eyes go wide with fear. They try not to remember that it had been eight months in hell that did this to him and they should have, somehow, found him sooner).

On good days they believe the nurses when they tell them that he's getting better. They smile bitterly when they are told that "Mark" went through an unbelievable trauma but the fact he's still alive, that he has good days, is a sign he's a fighter. The nurses even tell them that he's having more good days than bad now and maybe one day he'll be able to go with them when they leave.

They hold onto the memories of the good days now, because when they come in to see him laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, sedated and restrained because he got lost in a memory and almost hurt someone (or worse, they remember, tried to take 'the easy option', a euphemism used by hitters for committing suicide to escape torture…)

Those are the days they know that the doctors are right.

Sometimes there is simply too much damage for wounds to fully heal.


	55. That Smile

**Rating: **T  
**Pairing: **(Werewolf!Eliot/Nate)  
**Prompt: **When you get stung with the heart of a little child (Werewolf!Eliot/Nate)

* * *

**That Smile**

* * *

They were all strange so they eventually considered themselves normal. It was a round about way of getting to normal but Nate wasn't going to argue with the idea. It made it a little less confusing when Parker started talking about how Hardison was acting weird and everyone understood implicitly that it could possibly mean that he was actually acting in a way other people would consider normal but was out of the norm for them.

They all had reasons for being the way they were and if you really thought about it it was sort of normal for them to have become the people they were.

That was probably the reason why when the team found out that Eliot was a werewolf, after the initial shock wore off, they wrote off his aggression, violence, and all those other personality quirks that were normal for him as just part of being a werewolf.

And that's probably why they went into the meeting with the pack trying to establish itself in the area just outside Boston fully prepared for the negotiations to, in Hardison's words, turn into "aggressive negotiations" very quickly.

Eliot had shook his head, told them they could relax, reminded them he was staying behind, and asked them if they thought he'd give a damn about breaking pack law if he thought they were heading into a dangerous situation.

And here they were, chatting over herbal tea and a very nice spread of freshly killed (and cooked) game and wild greens and berries. Their host's beta was talking to Sophie about Shakesperian plays and the younger members of the pack had all but kidnapped Parker to go tree climbing with them, their laughter ghosting back toward them from the edge of the clearing. The pack members he'd were probably the most honestly kind people Nate had met outside of their clients and seemed to just want to find a new home and a fresh start since their old pack had gotten too big to support all it's members.

He could see no violence in these people, even in their hunting there was also peace, in the moments they'd brought the meat to the table they had spoken their thanks to the creatures who died to provide their food.

The negotiations only had one stumble, the mention of Eliot, that the team would have no problem sharing their city so long as Eliot could come and go as he pleased. Their confusion over his lack of pack morphed in to silent cold when Nate spoke the name of his former pack.

But after a moment the leader asked when Eliot left the pack and Nate answered that as far as he knew Eliot had been gone from his original pack since he was eighteen, even younger. The coldness disapated and Nate was left with questions he didn't know if he wanted answers for.

It was hours later, when they'd come home, when Hardison had made the mistake of teasing Eliot about how he was weirdly violent even for a werewolf, that Nate knew he had to ask.

He followed Eliot to the roof, standing him on the edge, looking out into the city at night, the question unasked in the air.

And Eliot spoke to the darkness and silence between them, of a pack that was ruled by an alpha slowly going mad, of the harsh rule and violent rages, of a young pup who watched his sister, the alpha's beta, be beaten night after night by the one who should have protected her most.

He spoke of a Pup who grew up lashing out in violence and anger because there was nothing he could do to protect those he loved and in the end all he could do was run away.

At the end he gave a bitter chuckle, a broken noise, saying it wasn't really that different from any story about abuse. The end result was the same.

He turned back to Nate, voice casual, almost mocking, deadly grin on his lips. "It's how you get that rattlesnake smile."


	56. Say Yes

Leverage, Nate/Eliot, Love Story (by Taylor Swift)

* * *

**Say Yes**

* * *

It started in Miami, maybe before that.

Hell, it probably started around that pool table in Chicago (they have a suspicion that that same pool table is what's underneath Parker's attempt at wrapping the present from her and Hardison(it's a very distinctive overzealous use of ribbon, that's how he knows to blame it on the thief).

Maybe it even started way back in Yemon (or was it Nigeria) when he first heard the name Nathan Ford.

He wasn't sure when it had started, when their stories came together as the start.

But he could track it over the years, through jobs and on race horses and into rehab (for a job and for real) through exploded hospitals and scattering family, into a ring and back into the bottle and onto the deck of a ship and onto a helicopter. It spiraled through separation and speaking the truth and finding it and reunions and blackmail and falling apart and coming together and farther and farther down the road.

And somehow the story ended here, walking into the office that was once Nate's apartment, finding the team dressed in formal ware, Parker holding a basket of flowers and Hardison holding a cushion with two gold rings on it that Eliot was pretty sure had been hanging from gold chains on his and Nate's necks twenty minutes ago, a freaking layered cake with one of those husband and wife bridal decorations on top (though it looked like someone had hacked two apart and stuck the men together), a small pile of gifts (including something disturbingly pool table shaped) sitting just behind Sophie dressed as a member of the church.

And in a moment he's going to go on a rampage and put the fear of god back into them, really he will, especially when they start playing the wedding march as he and Nate walk in.

But their story has led them here and this isn't the ending and he'll kill them all some other day.

And when Sophie starts in he may, despite himself, just say yes.


End file.
